


Alone Again Or

by iamocelost



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Adventures!, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Because Rick duhdoy, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lots of Ricks, Multi, Post-Season 2, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-09 04:10:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamocelost/pseuds/iamocelost
Summary: Beth's half-sister from another dimension breaks Rick out of prison, but she's got problems of her own.Problems of the "The Galactic Federation killed my whole family because they achieved inter-dimensional travel" variety.Problems that require the Rickest Rick.





	1. Jail House Rick

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this shortly after the Season 2 finale but never really knew where I wanted to go with it until Season 3. Now I'm full of inspiration and feelings.
> 
> The title is taken from the Love song of the same name.
> 
> Tags will be updated as I post.

It was really lucky that the first Gromflomite that spotted her was in a break room. So much easier to hide the body, though she did lose a few precious seconds maneuvering the guard’s wings into a locker before shoving the rest of the body in and slamming the door.

Amerie peeked out into the hallway for other insectoids before dashing along the corridor toward the maximum security warehouse, laser pistol held at the ready and boots clicking against the metal flooring. At the 90-degree turn, she paused again, using the shiny surface of the gun to see around the corner.  _ Shit _ . Two more Gromflomites were patrolling the hallway, keeping her from the big double-doors at the end. Amerie let her eyes unfocus, calling to mind the detailed plans to the facility she’d paid her life’s savings for, then looked up. A ventilation shaft just above her would get her where she needed to go, albeit less directly. Holstering the pistol, she used her left hand to operate the controls of the jet pack strapped on her back while the right found the multitool on her belt and prepared to remove the cover of the duct.  _ Easy peasy _ . 

The vent was cramped, especially with the machinery on her back, but Amerie managed to wiggle around enough to get the cover back in place before beginning her slow crawl. It took her about ten minutes to find another vent that let her out where she wanted to be, but even then, the sheer size of max sec meant her target was still a ways away. Conveniently, though, right about that time, her distraction was scheduled. She didn’t hear the explosion, but the way her weight changed told her that the bombs she had planted had done at least some damage to the station’s gravity generator, enough to cause a little chaos.

Sure enough, the Gromflomite guards that had been buzzing around the upper levels of max sec were called down to help their flightless coworkers. Since the hexagonal holding cells were all bolted in place, just in case of such emergency, everyone’s attention should be focused lower down.

Amerie slipped out of the duct, letting the cover drift away instead of wasting time replacing it. She quickly scanned the nearest cell numbers to orient herself, thankful that most inmates here were kept behind sound shields so she didn’t have to hear what that Garblovian was saying to her or worrying about it attracting the attention of the guards. Her target was higher up, a sure sign of his notoriety, and she let the jet pack take her up another forty feet, carefully eyeing the floor over a hundred feet below her for any prison personnel not entirely focused on the gravity malfunction. A couple of minutes of slipping between cell blocks and dodging the few Gromflomites ordered to remain at their posts brought Amerie to cell block HX-400. She began looking at the inmates as much as the cell numbers, searching for anything resembling human.

_ Bingo _ .

His head was slumped, but the unruly mass of gray hair gave him away. Glancing around the make sure no one was nearby -- no one who wasn’t incarcerated, at least -- Amerie took the multitool from her belt again and drifted through the sound shield, only to be assaulted by C-137’s snores, along with the noises of several aliens gabbing at her. She cringed; looked like this was one of those blocks where collections of cells were shielded instead of individual hexes. It didn’t change the plan, though; just meant that she’d have to be careful what she said to C-137 until they got out of the shield.

She got to work on one of the restraints around his ankle. “Rick,” she said as she jammed one of the multitool’s more dangerous-looking bits into the mechanism, “you need to wake up.” Her words didn’t seem to have any effect, but the jolt of electricity up his leg as the cuff broke free did. C-137 screamed himself to consciousness, kicking out with her now free foot. Amerie dodged, eyes darting around for guards who might have noticed the commotion despite the shield. “Quiet!” she snapped.

“Wuzzat,” said C-137, blinking blearily. “Fuck you doing here?”

Amerie rolled her eyes and started on the other ankle restraint. The second jolt seemed to really get C-137 back together.

“Y-y-you got an actual plan here,” he spat, “or are you just gonna keep electro-- keep shocking me for a while?”

“The gravity is out in here right now,” Amerie said calmly, “so as I release your arms, grab onto something.”

“W-w-where did you even come from?” he asked. “I mean, what the f-fuck is an Am--”

“Later,” Amerie interrupted, glaring up at C-137 and tilting her head toward his hulking six-armed cellmate that was screaming in Common that if the disgusting human female didn’t release him as well, he’d rip her head off.

C-137 fell silent and obediently grabbed a nearby metal handle after she released his right hand. She followed up with the left, but ignored the collar -- either they’d be out of range before the guards had a chance to use it, or they’d both be fucked.

Once C-137 was securely attached to her, Amerie eased them just out of the sound shield, eyes flicking around. In this relative safety, she said, “I have a portal gun. Do you have a safe house or something we could go to? It's gotta be in the dimension.”

“What do you take me for?” C-137 spluttered. “You think I'm -- you think I'm some kinda amateur? Of course I got places we can go.”

Amerie drew the portal gun from one holster and handed it over her shoulder to the old man, then drew the laser pistol again. 

“What kind of shitty knock-off is this?” C-137 asked as he fiddled with the controls and Amerie drifted toward the wall she had emerged from. 

“ _ My  _ shitty knock-off,” she hissed, “and could you keep it do-”

“Intruder! Alert! Alert!”

Amerie looked down to see a pair of Gromflomites speeding toward them, rifles at ready. She cursed and punched the accelerator on the jet pack, shooting them along the row of cells. “You got that thing set?”

C-137 belched loudly in her ear. “Are you fucking kidding me? Y-y-you call this an intuitive interface?”

“Shut up and hurry!” The jet pack was a little bit faster than the Gromflomites, but Amerie didn't like their chances if they had to make evasive maneuvers. The insectoids seemed to realize this and opened fire. Not wanting C-137 to get caught in the blast, Amerie whipped them around and threw the machine into reverse, giving herself clear line of sight on the guards and shielding C-137 with her body. She let off a few quick shots and clipped one of the guards, who began fluttering toward the floor a long ways down, but he was replaced by reinforcements. 

Amerie tried to keep an eye on the cell numbers flying past her to keep from smashing C-137 straight into a wall, but it was hard to do that and dodge and shoot all at the same time. It didn't help that C-137 was blathering about all the ways the design of the portal gun was faulty. “... and who in their right m-m-mind would use a heliobrasive casing with a little shitstain of a stranded power converter!?”

“Just open the damn portal as soon as you see the wall!” Amerie yelled. She shouldn't have; it was enough of a distraction that a bolt grazed her arm. The hand holding the pistol spasmed and the gun fell from her grasp. She lunged for it, another mistake, and took a second bolt in the gut. 

The impact knocked her and C-137 akimbo, but he didn't seem to notice; she heard the sound of a portal opening in the split-second before the pain hit and wrenched them back around, setting her sights on the green light even as she screamed. C-137 had one armed wrapped around her neck as he gestured wildly with the other. “Wubbalubbadubdub, bitches!” he crowed as they plunged into the stickiness of interdimensional travel. Amerie blacked out.

 

*****

 

Their crash-landing through the portal was only slightly cushioned by the dark sand they landed on, and Rick’s prison-issued jumpsuit with its short sleeves did nothing to protect his arms from abrasion. He jumped to his feet as soon as he stopped skidding across the ground and searched wildly for some landmark to orient him. It had been a while since he'd been to Hyperion-34, but not a lot had changed: still covered in hard, black sand; still circled by one freakishly close moon that looked like a skull; probably still inhabited by giant sand lobsters. 

“G-get off yo-EURGH-ur ass, Amerie,” Rick snapped. “We gotta get moving if you don't want to be sprayed with digestive juices and and have your skin slough off before being sliced into pieces by giant pincers.” He grimaced. “And trust me, you don't.”

But Amerie didn't move from her slumped position a few feet away from him. He crouched beside her. “C’mon, shit head, you got some explaining to do.” He grabbed her arm and shook her, finally noticing the hole the size of a fist that had been burned in her stomach. “W-w-well that wasn't smart, was it?” he snapped, but the woman was obviously unconscious, though she did groan a little as Rick felt the edges of the wound. It was cauterized, but still a little weepy. She wouldn’t die any time in the immediate future. Unless the sand lobsters got her. 

Rick stood up again and turned in a circle, finally spying the rocky outcropping that housed a little bunker he and Birdperson had built. It would still have food, vodka, and tools: everything he would need to get completely shit-faced and back on his feet.

For a long moment, Rick considered leaving the wounded woman and holing up in the bunker on his own. As a rule, he avoided Ameries; they were Beths’ half-sisters in the dimensions where his ex-wife remarried. Maybe because she had a more stable home life or some shit like that, Beths in those timelines didn't have Summers, but Ameries more than made up the bitchiness quotient, and they were smart enough to be a real pain in his ass. Rick made a point of staying out of all G-class dimensions just so he'd never inadvertently cross paths with one.

But, this Amerie had sprung him out of jail for some reason, and he seriously doubted it was out of the kindness of her heart. He needed to know why before he figured out what the next move was. The move after getting the drunkest he'd been since Squanchy’s Squanchday party in ‘83.

So he grabbed the control to the jet pack and got it running again so that the Amerie’s body was floating a couple of feet off the ground and climbed onto her back again. “I just want you to know,” he said as they moved along, Amerie’s hands and feet brushing against the ground, “that I'm gonna tell ev--UURP-- every Rick I can about the time I rode an Amerie ‘til she passed out.”

The rocks ended up being about a half-mile away, and it didn't take long to cover the distance once Rick got the jetpack really going. On the way, he inspected the propulsion system as well as he could while sitting on it, frown deepening. It was a decent piece of work -- not as good as he could have done, of course -- and it rankled him that a girl built it. Sure, Ameries were usually less than ten years younger than Beths, but no one under thirty counted. 

The hatch to the bunker was covered with a layer of sand about an inch thick, but nothing had rusted. It did screech loudly when Rick hauled it open; if the sand lobsters weren't coming before, they were now. He fiddled with the controls on the jetpack until the Amerie was floating down the newly-exposed shaft, then followed on the ladder, trying to ignore how weak his arms and legs felt after months strapped to a wall. 

The ladder led down to a narrow hall that opened into a honeycomb of small rooms carved into the rock, expanded from a naturally occurring cave system. The air was a little musty; the circulation system could probably use new filters, but it was still working. Rick prodded Amerie’s body through a series of rooms and tunnels until they reached the main room, which had served as mess hall, conference room, and med bay during the time the resistance had made camp here. Rick nudged the Amerie over the table before shutting off the jetpack entirely, letting her fall with a  _ thunk _ . That woke her up, at least. She moaned loudly and rolled onto her side, her body instinctively curling around the wound in her gut. Rick blinked slowly, then headed toward the storage lockers at one end of the room. The first one was full of canned food -- completely useless -- but the second one contained a number of bottles. Most of them were laquillion, which had, once upon a time, been Birdperson’s liquor of choice, and Rick wasn’t feeling picky so he screwed the cap off the and chugged. When he stopped to breathe, he felt lighter than he had in months, all the weight gone from his shoulders as his eyes slid to where the Amerie was squirming on the table. The still very sober part of his brain was mocking him for being such a light-weight, but the rest of his synapses, firing more slowly than normal, didn’t give a fuck.

After another long swallow, Rick started looking for a first aid kit among the crates. In the fifth box he searched, he found one, complete with the cell-regeneration serum he had developed back in his 30s and a pack of new skin strips. He walked a mostly straight line to the table and pushed the Amerie onto her back, pulling another long groan from her throat. “H-hold still, ya fucking pu--UURP -- pussy,” he snapped when her hands moved to press on the wound again. He eyed the gaping hole and unscrewed the lid on the serum, pouring a couple of milliliters directly onto the exposed organs. The Amerie howled and thrashed as the wound began to fizzle, so Rick stepped back and helped himself to another drink. After a few moments, the Amerie’s cries died down and she lay back on the table panting, eyes squeezed shut and sweat pouring down her face. “Y-you gonna -- you gonna let me fucking finish?” Rick asked. The woman opened one eye to glare at him but kept silent.

Rick ripped at the Amerie’s shirt to expose more of the skin around the wound, then placed a new skin strip over the widest part of the hole. Two more strips above and below covered naked insides, and the pressure from Rick’s hands and heat from the Amerie’s body activated the nano-organics to begin knitting the strips to her flesh and release a potent painkiller. Her breathing almost immediately eased, and within a minute, she was sitting up on the edge of the table. In the meantime, Rick had crashed onto a couch that had belonged to Squanchy’s great aunt -- it still smelled like old lady farts -- and worked his way through half the bottle of laquillion. Once the Amerie looked semi-coherent, he spat, “You mind telling me what the fu-EURR-ck you’re doing here?” 

“Getting your ass outta max sec,” she answered, easing onto her feet gently. “You’d think you’d show a little gratitude.” She unbuckled the harness at her chest and around her legs, letting the jet pack fall on the table, then shucking off the heavy-duty gray knapsack that was underneath. 

“But w-what’s a fucking Amer-Amerie doing here?” Rick went on, swinging the bottle wildly. “You know y-your kind aren’t wel-- you know I don’t like Ameries fucking with my -- with my shit.”

The Amerie hobbled over to the crate of liquor. “Laquillion?” she said, exasperated. “All of it? What is this, a fucking sorority house?”

“Don’t like it, don’t drink it,” Rick said, followed by another swig. He blood-alcohol level was approaching its former baseline. “And answer my question.”

She selected a bottle and managed to find something resembling a glass, which she wiped out with the tatters of her shirt after seating herself with the table between them. Rick rolled his eyes at the theatrics of it -- her silence, the distance she put between them -- but he refused to give her the pleasure of making him repeat himself, just watching as she opened the bottle and poured a dainty little glassful. As she sipped, Rick started chugging, tired of her dumb-ass powerplay game. 

“I’m the Amerie of G-xx1,” she said finally.

Rick spewed laquillion all over the couch and stared at her with drool dripping down his chin. “Y-you -- you’re not allowed -- J-jesus H C-c-christ!”

“Twenty-two days ago,” she went on like he hadn’t said anything, “Gromflomites portalled into the Smith household on Earth G-xx1 and killed Beth and Jerry. After managing to hold out for about eleven hours, Rick and Morty were also killed.”

Rick stared.

Rick remembered that he was fucking Rick Sanchez.

“And you’ve managed some k-kind of miracle escape?” he asked, sarcasm returning to his tone as he regained his footing in the conversation.

“Those Gromflomites didn’t know that Amerie existed. Instead, they went on a massive manhunt for Summer,” Amerie said in the same level voice she had used to describe the murder of her family.

Rick’s eyes widened. “So that means those assholes…”

Amerie nodded. “Weren’t from a G dimension,” she finished for him.

Rick slumped back, mind whirring. While the material characteristics of the dimensions on the known finite curve varied widely, time operated pretty much the same way across the board. Except G-xx1, which seemed to run about 35 days ahead. Rick G-xx1 had kept this a secret for a long time, until the Council began to wonder how a Rick could bet so much on baseball and  almost never lose. After a thorough investigation, the Council had declared a complete quarantine on G-xx1 (its previous designation had been stricken from the record) so as “not to fuck with time.” While Rick had never found the Council’s prohibitions worth more than two dog farts, his own run-in with the time police made him wonder if those assholes had actually done one thing right in their entire pathetic lives. 

But if Gromflomites from a non-G dimension had managed to get to G-xx1 22 days ago, that meant those Gromflomites would be leaving their home dimension in about two weeks. And since Rick Sanchez was the one being in the multiverse to have the power of interdimensional travel, the Galactic Federation would need the cooperation of a Rick, because all portal guns carried anti-tampering self-destruct devices. And if Amerie had come after him…

His eyes narrowed and he lurched to his feet, point an accusing finger. “You think I w-was g-gonna -- I was gonna fucking talk?! You don’t know a thing about me! You think they hadn’t already been t-t-torturing me for weeks?” He sneered. “You fucking this one up big time, doll.”

Amerie’s brown eyes remained steady on his face through his tirade. When he was finished, shoulders heaving, she said, “My analysis suggested that of the twenty-eight Ricks in Federation custody at the time leading up to the attack on G-xx1, you were among the least likely to break under duress. You were also projected to be the most likely partner for successfully liberating the other twenty-seven Ricks.”

“Y-your analysis?” Rick asked skeptically. “How do you even know w-w-what Ricks got taken? You’re not supposed to leave G-xx1.”

Amerie rolled her eyes. “Since when do you give a shit about Council edicts? And I know what Ricks were taken because I’ve spent the past five years studying the interactions among dimensions. I already had run a couple of simulations on which Ricks were most likely to end up in Federation custody; it was nothing to pop through a few dimensions and check my predictions.”

Rick paced a few steps before wheeling back around. “I’ve already had one run-in with the time police and I’m not doing it again. Y-you coming here and letting me out is bad enough…”

Amerie barked a laugh. “Time police are not a problem. We have an understanding.”

“What, d-d-do you massage their w-weird testicle heads or something?”

“I have proof that they’re the ones who fucked up the time flow in G-xx1 in the first place. They turn a blind eye to my activities.”

Her smugness was beyond annoying, but Rick couldn’t help but be a little impressed; blackmailing the time police was a ballsy move. He wondered why Rick G-xx1 hadn’t thought of it first.  _ Probably because he’s a fucking moron _ . He paced a bit more, drank a bit more, and swayed a little when he said, “So w-what’s your pl--UURP -- plan here?”

And watched the smugness fade a little. “I don’t have much of one at this point,” Amerie said, refilling her glass. “Getting you out of lock-up took most up most of my time--“

O-o-o-oh great!” Rick yelled. “So I’m gonna have to do this all on m-m-my fucking own? I should have left you for the l-lobsters after all.”

“Ah ah ah, Rick,” Amerie said, the little shit-eating grin returning to her face. “You need me, at least until you reconnect with your Morty.”

Rick sneered. Amerie brainwaves wouldn’t cancel out Rick brainwaves the way a Morty could, but they would scramble his own enough to make him untraceable to the Feds, at least for a while. He’d heard of X-Ricks, Ricks from the dimensions where Mortys were all still-born, teaming up with Ameries for this reason, but he shuddered at the thought.

And immediately put it out of his mind. “Fuck it,” he declared, tossing his now empty bottle into a corner to shatter. “I’ll fi-EUURP-gure it out tomorrow. Right now, I’m getting blackout drunk.”

Amerie rolled her eyes and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Whatever,” she said, standing with her own bottle still in hand. “Any place to sleep around here?” 

“Bunks down that way,” Rick said, sticking a thumb over his shoulder as he searched the crates for something other than laquillion.  _ What the fuck was Birdpreson thinking? _

His jaw clenched suddenly as the question took on too many meanings. “That Tammy bitch is gonna pay,” he muttered under his breath.


	2. Best Laid Ricks

Amerie had known that Rick C-137 was an extra-special kind of asshole. She knew about his run-ins with the Council, his self-designation as the “Rickest Rick.” Hell, she’d even had a look at evil Rick’s scale of evilness. She had been prepared for his pushback, but his dickishness was still exhausting to deal with. Still, it didn’t matter, now that he had agreed to help her. Or help himself in a way that coincided with her goals.

Two weeks wasn’t really enough time to break twenty-seven Ricks out of prison. At best, they might get through two a day. They would just have to start with the Rick with the highest probability of talking and work their way down the list. Then she would help Rick get the Feds off Earth in this dimension, and then…

She sat down heavily on a cot, bottle of alien liquor dangling between her knees. No matter what she managed to accomplish, there was always chance that the Morty and Beth of G-xx1 would still be dead.

And  _ goddamn _ , that fucking hurt.

She took a long pull of the laquillion, grimacing as she swallowed -- it tasted like soured fruit punch and running mascara -- then started rooting through her knapsack until she found a shirt and her laptop. As the computer booted up, she changed clothes, shoving the shredded, burnt thing she had been wearing into the pack in case she needed a rag later.

And then, it was back into what had so far been the greatest achievement of her life: the Transdimensional Rick Activity Feed For Investigation and Correlation. 

Amerie G-132 had started calling it the Rickipedia. Amerie was still not happy about that.

TRAFFIC allowed inhabitants across the known finite curve to post information about the activities of Ricks in their dimensions (or whatever dimension they happened to be in at the moment). At first, she’d primarily recruited other Ameries to help her collect data, but it had grown to include Beths, Summers, and Mortys as well as a few Squanchys and Birdpersons (Birdpeople? She was never sure). It had yet to be discovered by Rick, any Rick, because as long as Amerie lived 35 days in the future, she could retroactively counter any leaks before they happened, so long as she tracked it down within the grace period G-xx1 allowed her. But now, a Rick could come in and destroy the system without her having any warning, which was why she kept making back-ups every chance she got. No way she was letting five years of her life go down the drain because some paranoid Rick felt spied on.

After the perfunctory copies were made and distributed to data dropboxes throughout the multiverse -- Amerie of G-013 and Summer of O-274 were doing her a solid on that one -- she pulled up the list of incarcerated Ricks again. She’d already divided them into three rough categories in terms of their likelihood of cooperating with the Feds. To Rick C-137, the idea of any Rick breaking under torture was completely anathema, but Amerie knew better. Rick G-xx1 was a total pussy, interested only in a quick buck and the easy comforts that came with it. She was honestly surprised he’d managed to hold out against the Feds as long as he did, but she was fairly certain that had more to do with Morty than Rick himself. 

_ Morty _ .

Her breath caught sharply as she thought of her nephew. That kid had been born with a steel rod for a backbone.

She refocused on the screen before her, stretching out on the cot tenderly so as not to upset the nanobots binding new skin to her stomach. She and C-137 should --  _ should  _ \-- be able to cover all the Ricks in the high priority group, but after that, they’d need a serious accounting of the relative weight of the Ricks in the mid-priority group. Amerie had sent out a call for any intel that could be provided, whether it could be substantiated or not, and she had a few new tidbits to add to her analysis. Over the next hour, she shifted one Rick toward the bottom of the list and moved one up, sipping from the bottle of laquillion the whole time until her eyes stopped looking at what she told them to and her fingers were being stupid on the keyboard. She at least managed to send a new back-up out before shutting the whole thing down and sliding it to the floor, passing out on musty sheets in the barracks of what had once been Rick’s grand resistance.

Amerie was roused abruptly from her booze-and-trauma induced sleep a few hours later when a snarling face shrieked in her ear. “WHO THE SQUANCH ARE YOU?!” the cat-like creature yelled, his laser rifle shoved into her gut. “HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?”

Amerie sputtered, trying to pull away and finding herself tumbling off the low bed onto her ass. “Squanchy!” she squawked.

Squanchy was not impressed that she knew who he was, narrowing his eyes even further as he climbed atop the cot and continued to train his gun on her torso. “Answer my squanchin’ questions, you squanchin’ bitch,” he spat. 

Amerie thought as fast as her panicked brain could carry her through sleep deprivation and alcohol haze. Some Squanchys knew about Rick’s interdimensional forays, and some did not, so she wasn’t even sure if explaining she was Beth’s half-sister from another dimension would help. “Rick brought me!” she yelped, giving an answer to one question at least. 

Squanchy grinned maliciously. “Nice try, squancher. Rick’s in the squanchin’ clink.” His finger tightened on the trigger slightly, and Amerie found herself wondering if even her cybernetic enhancements could counteract the sheer trauma of being shot twice in so many days.

“NOT ANYMORE, MOTHER-SQUANCHER!” Rick roared as he grabbed Squanchy from behind in a crushing hug. “I’m back, baby!”

The man was clearly drunk off his fucking ass, swaying heavily with spit shining on his lower lip. He’d at least managed to get his prison collar off -- Amerie felt the slightest twinge of guilt that she hadn’t given it a second thought -- but he was still wearing the standard orange jumpsuit. Squanchy laughed loudly once he saw who had bundled him up. “You old squancher!” he crowed. “I shoulda known they couldn’t hold you!”

“Fuckin’ m-m-morons, th-EURRRP lot of ‘em!”

Squanchy shifted his eyes slyly to where Amerie was picking herself up off the floor. “You shoulda let me know you had a little squanchin’ going on here,” he said. “I wouldn’t have burst in like that.”

Amerie felt her face contort in disgust. “Not for a million fl-EURRR-bos,” Rick belched, his face reflecting her own. “This is B-Beth’s sis-- half-sister from another dimension.”

“Amerie, and I’m the one who got him out of the clink,” she explained coolly. Like hell she’d let Rick take credit for that.

Squanchy bounced back down on the bed in front of her, paw outstretched. “Nice to make your squanch!” he said brightly. She shook his hand politely before pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. 

“Aww,” Rick sneered, “was the p-p-precious wittle baby sweeping? Is she all t-t-t-EURRRRP tired out from saving Rick from the mean ol’ Federation?”

“Yes,” Amerie said simply, letting the exhaustion show on her face. “Yes, after spending the last twenty-two days trying to come up with a plan to save the entire fucking multiverse from the mean ol’ Federation, I am tired, Rick.”

“But you d-d-d-didn’t even -- you don’t have a fucking plan,” Rick groused, whole body contorting like a belly dancer just to stay upright. “Y-you came crying to Rick to help you out because you can’t do it yourself.”

Squanchy at least had the decency to step in at this point, giving Amerie a little wink before he said. “Hey, Rick! Let’s have a drink and squanch the squanch, eh?” He reached up to put a hand on Rick’s elbow, steering him back toward the mess hall. “We can plot our revenge in the morning.”

And, collapsing back onto the cot, Amerie managed a few more hours of sleep.

 

*****

 

For Rick, coming out of a black-out was never the slow, gradual process that some described. It was always sudden and harsh and  _ motherfucking painful _ . 

His eyes shot open, lids scraping like sandpaper over delicate membranes, then slammed back shut as the lights overhead pierced straight into his skull, shooting pain across his temples. He groaned, then realized what a mistake it was when his stomach took that as a sign to start heaving. He rolled over in time for the bile and alcohol to end up on the floor instead of choking him, and even as he puked, that part of his brain that was always running flipped through everything he’d seen in the bunker so far in an attempt to come up with a hangover remedy.

But Squanchy came through as he always did, shoving a glass of bright purple liquid in his face as soon as he looked up from the mess he’d made on the floor. “Old Squanch family recipe,” the scruffy alien chirped. He didn’t need to; Rick still remembers that smell of fruity sweet over mildewed carpet from the Flesh Curtain days with a deep sense of relief. Old Squanch family recipes had always set him right.

A little while later, he was sitting at one of the metal tables with a ration-pack meal in front of him, shoving rehydrated eggs into his mouth as Squanchy did the same and Amerie picked through hers. “So,” she said slowly, “you ready to talk business?”

Rick huffed loudly. “W-what-EURRGH-ver,” he said, hand starting to flutter toward a coat pocket that wasn’t there. He needed to find a replacement flask. And a replacement coat. Soon. Today.

Squanchy shifted his attention between the two of them. “You want me to squanch on outta here?” he asked lightly.

Rick waved a hand. “M-m-might as well stick around. It sounds like we’re gonna need all the -- all the help we can g-get for this nightm-- for this shit show.”

Amerie rolled her eyes at him and turned to Squanchy. “Rick C-137,” she said, tilting her head across the table, “was one of twenty-eight Ricks currently held by the Federation. One of those other Ricks is going to cooperate with the Feds, giving them interdimensional travel capabilities. We’ve got about twelve days to get as many of them out of custody as we can.”

Squanchy’s face had a serious set. “Should I even ask how you squanched this?” 

“Time in her dimension is f-f-EURR-ucked up,” Rick said shortly. “It’s 35 days in the future.”

“And Federation forces have already wiped out the Rick there,” Amerie went on.

Squanchy seemed to mull this over, then said, “Alright, how do we get squanchin’?”

“You said you g-g-gotta list of the Ricks?” Rick said, looking to Amerie. 

She nodded, pulling a laptop from the seat beside her. When she turned the screen toward him, she said, “This is in order of likelihood to cooperate, based on my analysis.”

“Right,” Rick replied dismissively, eyes scanning quickly. “Your ‘analysis.’” He was sure to use the air quotes.

Then he got a look at what she actually had: extensive dossiers that recorded trips to the Citadel, relationships with other Ricks, their reported level of evilness on Evil Rick’s assessment, their previous run-ins with the Federation, including…

“Th-this is all fucking wrong,” he snapped, shoving the machine away. “Y-you’ve got notes on here about Ricks working with-- fucking whoring themselves out to the-- the fucking Federation.”

Rick saw his disbelief mirrored on Squanchy’s face, but Amerie hummed in affirmation. “Mostly Ricks of the R dimensions,” she noted, “but there are outliers everywhere.” She pulled the computer toward her again, opening the file on the Rick at the top of her list: Rick R-421. “Which is why we need to start with this one,” she explained. “He’s, statistically speaking, the most likely to turn over intel to the Feds.”

“How the-- how do you even know a-a-any of this?” Rick sputtered. 

“I told you,” she said, in that same level tone that made him want to break her face. “This is what I’ve spent the last five years on. Documenting Ricks.”

“Fine!” Rick spat. “Whatever. We’ll follow y-y-your stupid-- your idiotic l-little list. Like an Amerie knows the f-first fucking thing about a Rick.” He frowned suddenly, anger fading as that part of his brain that was always running -- the part that solved problems while his mouth ran like Forrest goddamn Gump -- started fiddling with the logistics. “W-we’ll have to keep these R-EURRP-- Ricks somewhere until this all blows over,” he said, wiping a hand absent-mindedly across his mouth. “Can’t have ‘em r-r-running back home and fucking up our plans.”

Amerie’s eyebrows did a quick little bounce, then she nodded. “And it would be good to have them all in one place in case we don’t get the right one out and shit hits the fan.”

“I dunno,” Squanchy said thoughtfully to Rick. “You don’t really like it with someone starts squanchin’ orders at you.”

“S-so we make the Ricks w-want to stay where we put them,” Rick answered. “We’re -- we’re talking about a b-bunch of Ricks who have been incar-- have been locked up in the shittiest place in the whole fucking universe for f-f-EUUR-our months. Booze, maybe some K-lax, something to fuck…”

Amerie nodded slowly. “Create a little pleasure palace just for Ricks.”

Squanchy grinned widely. “Now that’s something I can squanch with,” he said, then backtracked a little. “Though, as far as the squanchin’, do we really want to bring in more people? I mean, I could probably round up some of the old crew, but that’s not gonna be enough to keep that many Ricks in squanchland.”

Rick felt a weight settle in his stomach as he realized what he was going to have to do. “I h-have someone I can -- can call, m-m-maybe.” Not that it had taken his calls in months, but it was still worth a try. He pushed the dread away before it could show on his face. “Y-you got an idea of how to get this asshole-- how to get Rick R out of prison?” he asked Amerie.

She shrugged. “Same way I got you out: portal in, create a distraction, then portal out.”

“How come-- why’d we have to st-stay in this dimension?” he asked, thinking back over yesterday’s events. “Your sh-shoddy craftsmanship?”

She heaved a sigh before answering. “Actually, yeah. My design is based on Rick G-xx1’s and I think we both know he’s a joke. The power supply on that portal gun is severely limited.”

“That expl-EURRP-- explains a lot,” Rick said. “Lucky-- lucky for you, I f-fixed it last night. Needed something to do-- something to keep me busy while I was drinking.”

Amerie’s jaw clenched like she wanted to protest, but she held her tongue, Rick grinning at her discomfort the whole time. Ameries were way too full of themselves. “Well that’s one less thing to worry about today,” she said eventually. “Right, so Squanchy, you’re on booze and drug duty.”

“You can squanch on me!”

“Rick, you’re gonna call whatever fuck buddy it is you have in mind,” she went on, hoisting herself to her feet. “And I’m gonna go over the layout of R-421 max sec.”

Rick snorted loudly. “Who-- who died and made you princess?”

She glared at him when she said, “Morty G-xx1.”

Squanchy followed her back to the barracks, leaving Rick in the mess hall. He stumbled over to the storage crates, looking for the one with all the booze. Apparently he’d gone through enough laquillion the night before to get down to vodka, and he gratefully took a few generous mouthfuls before searching for a spare communicator and punching in Unity’s number. A masculine blue-skinned humanoid appeared on the screen. “Rick!” it said.

“Hey Unity,” Rick greeted, one hand unconsciously reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “How-- how are you?”

“I heard you were in prison!” Unity fairly squealed. “Beta Seven said you’d been taken in for terrorism!”

“Y-yeah? Well, Beta Seven is an ass--”

“Why the hell are you calling me?” it interrupted. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“I-- I know, U,” Rick said, actually finding himself cringing a little.  _ Fucking exes _ , he thought. Even Diane had managed to turn him into a puddle of nervous guilt from time to time after she’d kicked him out. “I need a favor.”

The eyes on the screen narrowed. “A favor,” it repeated.

“Look, I-I-I know you were gonna try to get in good with the-- with the Federation,” Rick dove in, “but I’ve got it on good author-- I’ve got some good intel that they’re about to seriously upset the fucking balance of the multiverse or what-- whatever. And in order to keep that from happening, I need to keep a bunch of Ricks all high and happy for a few days without-- without risking a huge security breach.”

Unity looked at him for a moment. Rick’s eyes darted away. Unity started laughing. “You’re trying to hire me as a fucking prostitute,” it said coldly.

“No,” Rick clarified, “I’m asking a friend to have sex with a bunch of other versions of me while I go save the universe.” A long pause stretched out. “Come-- come on, Unity.” Rick was uncomfortable to how close he was to pleading. “I wouldn’t have-- I wouldn’t fucking bother you i-i-if it wasn’t important.”

The avatar dropped his head back, staring up as Unity thought it over. Rick hated that he was holding his breath. When it answered, its voice was hard. “Let’s get one thing straight, Sanchez,” it said. “I am not doing this for you. I am doing this because the Federation not only denied my application, it also quarantined me, and I’m hoping you’ll do as much damage as possible while I’m keeping all these-- what are we talking about? Clones?”

“Ricks from other dimensions,” Rick explained.

“Fine, these Ricks from other dimensions fucked senseless.” One eyebrow lifted slowly. “Is that clear?” 

“Crystal,” Rick said.

The avatar sighed. “How many Ricks are we talking about?”

Rick grimaced, considering how short their time was. “Maybe a dozen?” he guessed.

Unity nodded. “I’ll send a contingent of thirty, if only to keep part of my mind functioning while the rest of it is snorting K-lax with a dozen versions of my ex-boyfriend.” 

“Thanks, Unity. I’m really gonna owe y-you one.” He sent it a set of coordinates and a warning about the sand lobsters before tossing the communicator away from him and chugging down more vodka.  _ This better be fucking worth it,  _ he thought, swiping the back of his hand across his chin.  _ Amerie better get me back home _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of fun coming up with Rick-puns for these chapter titles.


	3. Grave Ricktuation

They ended up sedating R-421, who started whining about how they were going to to get caught and ruin his chances at making a deal the moment he realized who they were. Rick C-137 slung R-421 over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry as Amerie sprayed all the nearby prisoners with a short-term memory remover -- no point in giving the Feds any clues to Rick’s escape -- before opening a portal back to the bunker. Rick unceremoniously dropped his doppelganger before jerking the portal gun out of her hands. “Where are you going?” she asked harshly, worrying for a brief moment that C-137 assumed the job was done.

“Supplies,” he said, setting some new coordinates. “We -- EURRRP -- we’re gonna need more fire power if we’re g-gonna keep doing this.” He disappeared through the green glow with the signature sucking noise.

Amerie took a breath, massaging the bridge of her nose. Yes, he was an asshole. No, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Better to focus on what she could do. Like placing a subcutaneous tracking chip on Rick R-421 in case he tried to run.

Amerie had just wrestled the lanky man onto a cot when a blue-skinned humanoid appeared in the doorway, followed by more of his kind. “Hello,” the first one said. “I’m Unity.”

“Uh, hi,” Amerie said carefully, loosening her fingers from her gun. She knew of Unity (Unities? Was it collective across dimensions? So many questions…) “I’m Amerie.”

“What happened to Rick?” another avatar asked, leaning over R-421.

“That’s not your Rick,” she explained, wondering if C-137 was still dating Unity in this dimension. “C-137 went out to run some errands.” Probably meant they weren’t still dating, if he was avoiding being here when Unity arrived. “That’s Rick R-421 and he’s just sedated.”

The avatar closest to her nodded. “Rick explained that I am a hive mind, didn’t he?” it asked.

No. “Yeah,” Amerie said. “You’re going to help us keep the recently released Ricks happy, right?”

Another avatar rolled her eyes. “I guess so.” There were now nearly twenty of Unity spread through the barracks. “Is anyone here besides you and Rick?” asked the man to her right.

“Squanchy when on a drugs and booze run. He should be back soon.”

“Are you Rick’s new lover?” a woman asked from the other side of the room. Amerie wondered if Unity was swapping who was speaking so often because it knew how disconcerting it would be for a single-minded. Not to mention the touch of jealousy in the tone.

“Ugh, no,” she said without thinking. “Why do people keep assuming that?”

Unity shrugged. “Rick only needs other people to fuck. Are you family then?”

“His daughter’s half-sister from another dimension.” Saying that over and over was going to get old. “I needed C-137’s help so I broke him out of max sec.”

“And now you’re breaking more out,” Unity observed. Her avatars were moving cots around, creating larger beds, and sorting through storage units.

“Yeah, that’s the plan.” She glanced over to the space she claimed the night before. Unity was looking in her knapsack. “Hey, that’s mine!” she snapped.

“Then you should relocate it,” it advised her. “I doubt you’re going to want to be in here once we get things going.”

Amerie grimaced. “Can you help me get a cot out to the mess hall?”

“I’ll be using that space as well. I can make you a place in dry storage.”

Amerie wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a slight or just practical, but she didn’t have time to care. “Fine,” she said and began gathering her stuff. 

It was hours before C-137 showed back up, swaying on his feet and hauling two duffel bags that clanked loudly when he dropped them. Somewhere he’d found a set of clothes and a lab coat. Amerie eyed him across the long metal table. “You really shouldn’t go out without me,” she said, but the chastisement was half-hearted and Rick didn’t bother to respond. “You talk to Unity?” she asked instead.

“K-kinda hard to miss it on the way in here,” he said sarcastically as he sat down and started pulling parts out of one of the bags. “What’s our next -- EURRRRP -- our next target?” 

“F-219,” Amerie answered. “How drunk are you?”

“N-n-not enough for it to-- to matter,” he stuttered.

Amerie eyed him carefully then nodded. “Fine. How soon do you want to head out?”

“C-christ, give me a fucking-- g-give me a chance to catch my breath,” Rick said, but there was no real heat behind the words beyond his typical sense of superiority. He seemed to have resigned himself to this task, and for that Amerie was grateful. It was going to be a lot easier if she wasn’t constantly having to cajole or threaten him.

“Fine,” she said again. “Will you at least tell me what you’re working on?”

“No.”

So she watched him work instead. He was fiddling with a pair of infrared goggles, but the tube of dark matter repellent at his elbow suggested he wanted them to do more than catch light outside the human visible spectrum. She tried to follow what his fingers were doing, but he moved too fast and Amerie had to admit that sometimes even she wasn’t up to following a really smart Rick.

“So let’s say w-we manage to get the Rick that’s gonna-- that’s gonna squeal like a fucking pig,” Rick said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. “Does-- EURRRP-- does that m-mean the-- the invasion of G-xx1 never happens?”

Amerie’s stomach turned hot with panic. This was exactly what she’d been trying not to think about. “It depends on when we grab the Rick,” she started slowly. “There’s a-- I guess a grace period. Let’s say you were to fire a missile on Earth G-xx1 from Earth C-137--”

“That’s basically impossible,” Rick pointed out before taking a swig from a flask Amerie was pretty sure he didn’t have before.

“Yeah, especially since you ditched C-137 for C-137ξ, asshole,” she answered, smirking at little at the twitch just to the left of his nose. “So I’d know about this missile approximately 35 days before you fired it--”

“Assuming instantaneous arrival,” Rick cut in again. “Also unlikely.”

“Can you just shut the fuck up for two damn seconds?” she snapped. “So,  _ hypothetically _ , I could travel to C-137 and try to prevent you from firing the missile. Maybe make sure you don’t get the parts of whatever. So long as I do that within the grace period, the missile never reaches G-xx1 and I go back to a home that’s different from the one I left insofar as it hasn’t been blown up. But somewhere in the last 20 to 25% of the time gap, the grace period ends, and even if I stop the missile from leaving C-137, the damage to G-xx1 in permanent.”

“So we r-r-really only have, like, four goddamn days,” Rick said, not looking up from the small metal sphere he was jiggling a screwdriver in. “Because if the Feds got a portal gun to G-xx1, they can portal right back out.”

“No, they can’t,” Amerie said, suddenly feeling impossibly tired. “I tracked them down and destroyed the device.”

“But you didn’t find out what dman dimension they were from?” Rick asked harshly, looking up from his work with a mean gleam in his eyes. “W-w-what the hell, Amerie? Is this f-fucking-- is this amateur hour or something?”

“Whatever Rick flipped on them didn’t give them the standard dimensional nomenclature, or he did and they didn’t bother with it,” Amerie answered as calmly as she could. Rick was, at his core, a troll, and she was going to keep from feeding him as long as she could. “Trust me, I went over everything they had on them and fed it into the analysis, but there was no smoking gun.”

“Y-yeah,” said Rick, pointing a quantum soldering tool in her direction, “l-l-l-let’s talk about this analysis of yours, b-because what it looks like-- you’ve been spying on Ricks.”

“Not just me,” Amerie said, wondering how bad it would hurt if that solder fused some of her skin cells into dead and/or alive patches. “It’s a collaborative effort.”

“Fucking Ameries,” Rick muttered, returning the tool’s tip to the device in his hand.

“Not just Ameries,” she corrected. “Beths. Summers. Even Mortys. They’ve recognized at some point of another that Ricks are the single greatest instability in the multiverse and keeping tabs on them is a good idea. Like now.”

“Y-y-you wanna know what I think about that?” Rick asked, then lifted one leg to fart loudly.

“Yeah, well, doesn’t change the fact that it might be what keeps us from living in a Federation multiverse.” She wrinkled her nose at the putrid odor and the thought of the Feds. “The Citadel is bad enough.”

Rick rolled his eyes. “Oh c-come on,” he said. “W-w-what the fuck do you take me for? W-we both know you’re just doing this to save your own dimension. Don’t give me this horseshit about the-- about the greater good and how you-- you’re some kind of g-goddamn freedom fighter now.”

“And why are you doing it?” she shot back, voice cold even as her face flushed with anger. “Do you really give a fuck about the rest of us, or do you just want to get home to your Morty?”

Rick’s eyebrows and mouth settled into a hard line. “I don’t want R-ricks out there besmirching-- r-ruining my good name.”

“Fine,” Amerie said, letting her jaw tighten around her words. “We’ve both got our reasons. Let’s just get the job done.”

Extracting F-219 was not the same walk in the park R-421 had been. For starters, F-219 wasn’t in max sec general population. Instead, he was being held in solitary on suicide watch. At first, they tried killing the guards they came across as quietly as possible as they searched the facility, but as soon as one dead body was discovered, the whole wing went on high alert.

They were pinned down behind a desk, eight or ten Gromflomites between them and F-219’s cell, when Rick handed her the goggles he’d been working on earlier. “P-put these on,” he said, sounding entirely too calm for the amount of laser fire that was flying over their heads. Amerie did as she was told, but her vision didn’t change at all. She was about to ask about it when Rick, wearing goggles of his own, tossed two of the metal spheres he’d been working on over his shoulder. There was the clink of them bouncing on the floor, the sound of the guards scattering -- probably assumed they were grenades -- then a mild puffing sound. 

A brief silence, then… “I can’t see!” one of the Gromflomites waited, a refrain that spread down the hall. Darkness bombs, Amerie realized. Rick had managed to suck all the light waves out of the room, while their goggles mitigated the effects. He was already steadily sniping the terrified aliens by the time Amerie had processed this, and she joined in, pressing forward to F-219’s cell, tranquilizer at the ready. Good thing, too; the sudden darkness had driven F-219 much further down the spiral of despair and he was in the process of trying to strangle himself when Amerie intervened.

Rick opened a portal and carried him into the waiting arms of Unity. “T-two down,” he said.

Amerie sighed. “Only twenty-five more to go.”

“Can’t you just, y-you know, portal back home and see if it’s fixed?” Rick asked, leading her back to the mess hall. She did not miss the way his eyes had cut over to the bed in the corner where R-421 was snorting a pink powder off the well-toned abs of Unity’s avatar.

“Fuck no,” Amerie said, “not after every one. The time travel coupled with the portal fucks with you.”

Rick seemed to accept this without much thought. “W-w-whatever. G-give me-- EURRRP-- give me a couple hour and we’ll get the next one.”

Amerie was only to happy for a little sleep.

 

*****

 

Rick consumed whatever Squanchy put in front of him.

Sometimes it was a sandwich or a plate of rubbery eggs. Sometimes it was beer or, more rarely, liquor. Sometimes it was the caffeine powder laced with K-lax that he’d lived on when they were touring. Rick just trusted Squanchy to know what he needed, even if it was a heavy dose of fleeb tranquilizers and a couple hours sleep.

He and Amerie were averaging a jail break every fifteen hours. Some were easy. Others left them with singed hair and scorch marks. And through it all, his ex was having an orgy with a bunch of other Ricks and he had not been invited. 

It fucking sucked.

He’d stopped going into the barracks after the fifth drop-off, portaling instead into the mess hall and leaving the job of shepherding the new Rick to someone else. Amerie seemed to want to avoid the barracks as well, retreating into dry storage every chance she got. He had assumed she was sleeping between missions, until he noticed Squanchy putting out lines of K-lax and caffeine for her as well.

After the eighth jail break -- Rick T-097, who had a vague Soviet affectation -- Amerie presented him with a countdown clock. “This is how much is left in the grace period,” she said. “When it hits zero, I’ll go to G-xx1. If things are back to normal, our work is done.”

“A-and if it’s not?” Rick asked, eyeing the timer. Four hours and some odd minutes.

Amerie shrugged. “We hit up dimension H-7φ35 and pick up Rick P-502.”

Rick started to ask how she knew it wasn’t Rick H-7φ35, then stopped himself. Every time he did, he got an earful about Gromflomite wing structure or the way the oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio on a particular Earth permanently affected a Rick’s lung capacity.

Amerie disappeared into her lair, and Rick picked through the spare parts he had spread out around the mess hall, imagining the various devices of destruction he could make. He thought he’d been to H-7φ35, thought he remembered it being hot, and started tinkering with an absolute zero generator idea. A few minutes or a few hours later, Squanchy appeared at his elbow with a beer and the Gazorpazorp equivalent of a pizza. “Thanks, Squanchy,” he said absently, trying to manipulate a lead wire with a pair of pliers.

Squanchy jumped up to sit on the table next to him. “Hey Rick,” he said, “I’ve been squanchin’. Maybe, just in case, you and Amerie don’t get the right guy, maybe we should send the signal.”

Rick closed his eyes for a moment, hands still above the brick-sized glass casing of his cold machine. “I-I-I don’t know if we’re that-- that desperate yet.”

Squanchy clearly disagreed, his mouth set in a deep scowl. “We’re not squanchin’ ready for something like this, Rick. You’re the only one with any squanchin’ idea what we’re up against here. We need time to squanch, to get the crew together, to reactivate the intel network --”

Rick cut him off, dropping the tool he was holding on the table with a  _ thud _ . “F-f-f-for fuck’s sake, Squanchy, let’s at least-- at least wait and see what’s going on in the future first. A-a-and if it’s looking grim, then --” he held up a finger for emphasis “-- then we’ll start talking about the signal.” His face reflected Squanchy’s when he picked up his beer. “And if it comes to that, w-w-we’ll have to talk to Amerie about this interdimensional network she’s already got.” He shook his head. “I hate to admit it, b-but she’s got something going there that we might need.”

“Then maybe try to be a little squanchin’ nice,” Squanchy advised as he hopped down and trotted away, clearly annoyed by Rick’s approach to the problem. Rick brushed it aside; it wasn’t the first time they’d fought over tactics, and the way things were looking, it probably wouldn’t be their last. The good thing about Squanchy, though, was that no matter how big of an asshole Rick was to him, he just snarled right back.

He kept the last comment in mind, though, when Amerie reappeared later, countdown clock having hit zero. “I-I-I’m coming with you,” Rick said as she set the coordinates in the portal gun. When she eyed him skeptically, he shrugged. “A-a-at least if everything’s still shot to shit, I might be able to scavenge some-- some materials.” And if there happened to be Federation troops around, she’d be less likely to die suddenly.

She nodded tightly. Rick didn’t miss the way her hand shook slightly as she grabbed a plastic gallon jug of water from a nearby storage bin. “You’re going to feel terrible after you go through the portal,” she said simply, shooting a green circle into the nearest wall and marching through without a backward glance.

When Rick stepped through the portal he had the briefest moment to wonder why Amerie was slumped against the burnt remains of a couch that was the wrong color before a wave of pain started in his gut and spread through his body. He crumpled forward, hitting hands and knees and feeling himself wretch without anything coming up. By the time his stomach had stopped trying to strangle itself, the wildfire that had run through his nervous system had mostly settled into the space behind his eyes, a vice grip on his temples, while throbbing aches solidified in his knees and elbows. “F-f-fuck,” he moaned.

“Yeah,” Amerie said above him, sounding equally haggard. “This is why I didn’t come back until now.” She set the gallon jug of water she’d brought with her at his side. “Drink some water; it’ll help.”

“Why?” he asked, slowly getting back to his feet. “I-I-I mean, obviously things are still fucked here.” He gestured around the living room with its blaster-seared walls and broken furniture. “L-l-let’s just head back.”

“No,” Amerie said firmly, even though when he looked up her jaw was clenched in discomfort. “There’s lots of reasons the living room could be trashed.” She marched toward the kitchen and the door to the backyard. With a string of expletives in three different languages, Rick followed, drinking deeply from the plastic bottle as he went.

The kitchen looked worse that the living room, blue and red blood splattered on the countertops. Whoever had gone down in here had gone down fighting. Probably meant Beth. Jerry’d never have managed to inflict this much collateral damage. 

Rick squashed the slight twinge of guilt over the Beth he’d left behind on Cronenberg-Earth. She was fine. Probably.

Amerie had stopped short just outside the door, swaying slightly on her feet. Rick squinted in the overwhelming sunlight -- he hadn’t actually seen sunlight in days now -- and looked in the direction she was staring. On the far side of the garage, four mounds of dirt marked four hand-dug graves. No question now. Rick took another pull on the water bottle as he watched Amerie, wondering if she was going to flip her shit, maybe drop to her knees in dramatic fashion and scream as she pounded her fists on the ground.  _ C’mon _ , he thought,  _ do it. Just like in the movies. _

Instead, she turned and snagged the water jug from him before saying, “We might as well raid the garage.”

It looked like the garage had already been raided by the Gromflomite squad, but Amerie kicked one corner of the washing machine to open a hidden hatch in the floor. She stood there, chugging water for several seconds while Rick leaned against the door, trying to decide if his body could actually manage a ladder or not. “Why d-do-- why do I feel like-- like the boulder people marching band is p-parading behind my eyeballs?” he asked.

“It’s the effect of the time travel,” she replied, staring down the hole in the floor like she wasn’t thrilled about climbing down either. “Like your body thinks you’ve been starving it for 35 days, except it’s not dead yet. Rick G-xx1 figured out someway to cut down on how long the symptoms persist, but even he never got rid of it entirely.”

“H-how long we talking?” Rick asked, dismayed. The water in his stomach was starting to roil around. 

“Thirty-six hours, minimum. Rick got it down to around twenty, but he never shared with me.” She sighed heavily. “It’ll be better once we go back to the base. Less of a boulder people marching band and more of a Smarkian prison riot.”

Rick grimaced. Better, but still bad. 

Amerie finally mounted the ladder and started down slowly. After a loud, wet belch, Rick followed. It was mercifully dark down here with only the glow of the emergency lighting. Amerie was already rooting around in the dark. “How the fuck did these end up down here?” she snapped, holding up a pair of worn-out hi-top sneakers. “They’ve been missing for months!”

“M-maybe G-xx1 had a shoe fetish,” Rick suggested, picking up a nearby crate and dumping out its contents, then immediately regretting it as the sound of metal hitting the concrete floor shot mortar shells in his brain. “JESUS H CHRIST!” Amerie shrieked, clamping her hands over her ears.

Rick didn’t say anything by way of apology, but he placed the hemoglobic transmitter master control he’d found carefully inside the now-empty box, for both their sakes.

It only took a few minutes for the pair of them to pick up anything useful, considering what a moron G-xx1 had been. Once they finished, Amerie said, “Please tell me we don’t have to climb back up that ladder.”

“W-what do you take me for, a-a hack?” Rick shot his portal gun at the wall and carried his newly-acquired property through.

The pressure behind his eyeballs let up some as soon as he was back in the bunker, and he heard Amerie let out a small sound of relief behind him. Squanchy, waiting for them in the mess hall, looked up at them expectantly. “Well?” he asked. “We get this thing squanched or what?”

“Or what,” Amerie answered dully, sitting down heavily on a bench. “It’s possible G-xx1 hit the end of the grace period before we pulled the last couple of Ricks, but that’s not a bet I’m willing to take.”

“Hit the end of the grace period?” Unity asked, avatar approaching the group with a platter of ration bars and shot glasses. “What does that mean exactly?”

“I-i-it means her family is permanently dead,” Rick said harshly, rubbing his eyes and doing his best to not think about what was probably happening in the barracks. Or how much better a hit of Pink Spice would make him feel right now. “A-a-a-and we have to keep rescuing these stupid Ricks.”

“Fuck,” he heard Amerie mutter and looked up to see her with her face planted in her hands. Squanchy moved to put an arm around her shoulder with a sympathetic look on his face. Rick rolled his eyes. Infinite timelines. Infinite families. Unity, at least, was completed unfazed, but it had never really understood family -- one of the things Rick had liked most about it actually. The avatar wandered away without further comment.

Or even glancing Rick’s way.

He hated that he noticed that. Obviously, he wasn’t drunk enough. Setting the crate that he’d brought from G-xx1’s lab next to his pile of parts that had taken over one corner of the mess hall, he took a couple of long pulls from his flask before offering it to Squanchy. The cat alien narrowed his eyes a little in something like rebuke, then shrugged away from Amerie and accepted the proffered drink. Amerie herself took a deep breath then lifted her head, and where Rick had been expecting tears, he saw only dry, irritated skin, the beginning of a stress-induced break-out along the jaw. “Okay,” she said, “H-7φ35.”


	4. One Rick Two Rick Dead Rick Blue Rick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's not really a Rick and Morty fic until Rick's making comments on the plot structure.

The problem with crowd-sourcing intel, Amerie thought as sweat poured down her sides, was the trolls. She’d have to go back and examine the data, at some future time when her very existence wasn’t at stake, but she was fairly certain that she would find that all those helpful folks who had submitted information about the H-7φ35 Federation Prison Facility were actually the same person, looking for some lulz. Maybe Rick H-7φ35 was trying his hand at a small bit of revenge for being replaced, or perhaps a bunch of Mortys had pressured each other on in a dare. It didn’t really matter now. What mattered was that normally she would have noticed that shit, and she hadn’t, and now they were in deep.

The Federation Prison Facility in H-7φ35 was not a free-floating space station, like they’d been expecting. The prisoners in max sec were not secured in individual chambers, like they’d been expecting. Instead, the prison was inside a damn volcano and because the exits were so few, far between, and fortressed, the prisoners had free-run, which left her and C-137 to creep through the tunnels in search of P-502.

C-137 hadn’t even bothered with a tirade when they realized their situation. He’d just glared at her for a short period of time, then pulled a handful of marbles out of his pocket, yanked out a few hairs, and carefully fed a single strand into each orb tossing them down the tunnel in both directions, shaking his head. “Y-y-you’re damn lucky I picked up that hemoglobic transmitter system,” he snapped, pulling a small screen out of another pocket.

“I’m sorry, okay?” she hissed harshly. “I’m sorry that one of these is going to be a little bit hard.”

Rick made a rude noise and settled down to wait for his little blood seekers to find the appropriate organic matter.

That had been a couple of hours ago, before Rick had located P-502 and run straight into a Pripudian prison gang initiation ceremony. Apparently, the Pripudians took their prison gang initiation ceremonies very serious.

Amerie waited for a break in the gun fire -- it did not speak well of security here that prisoners had access to high velocity projectile tech -- then spun out of cover to fire three quick shots, downing at least two of the worms. With her back pressed against a rocky outcropping, she checked the disconcertingly low charge on her laser pistol.  _ Fuck _ .“Rick!” she called, no longer sure of where the old man was. “How many are left?”

A small explosion suddenly shook everything around her, and she ducked into a ball, expecting rocks to come crashing down along with the dust and debris. Rick crowed somewhere ahead of her. “None now, muthafuckers!” His footsteps pounded on the hard ground. “G-g-get your ass in gear! We gotta book it!”

Amerie dashed after the white coat, sliding for one brief, heart-stopping second in Pripudian guts before regaining her footing. It was so hard to breathe the hot, dry air; her mucous membranes were raw and the post-time travel headache had been compounded by intense dehydration. Several yards ahead, Rick pulled up to a halt, darting quickly to the side, and Amerie followed as well as she could, catching the briefest glimpse of another lanky, gray-haired human surrounded by several other prisoners. She almost screamed with Rick clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, then realized how loudly she was panting and tried to get herself under control.

“C-c-c-c’mon now,” P-502 was saying, “I-I-I-I can’t be held accountable -- I-I can’t be blamed every time a -- a glip-glop goes missing.”

“Sanchez,” a low rumbling voice said -- Amerie closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had seen; that could be the tuskfish -- “no one else here could have turned Flemers into a pile of radioactive goo.”

“Yeah,” a high-pitched voice said, “ith’s a thign of our high regard for your intellegenthe that we blame you.” That lisp had to be the Shimshamian with the prominent tooth poking out; they could never speak Common properly after a certain age.

“Y-y-you’re just  _ assuming _ that the -- that the goo you found  _ was  _ Flemers!” P-502 pleaded. “But there’s no way to know that without testing!”

“Testing that you would do?” the tuskfish asked. 

“I-I-I mean, if you ask nicely, I might be able to fit it in next week.”

Rick’s hand had loosened from Amerie’s face, and she glanced up to see his eyes darting around the upper edges of the canyon the tunnel had become. “Th-th-this asshole’s gonna get himself smeared,” Rick whispered in her ear, the smell of alcohol on his breath slapping her in the face like a sheet of algae. “Watch the -- watch my back, and k-k-keep an eye for snipers on the ridge.”

Amerie nodded her understanding, and after a couple of deep breaths, Rick C-137 sprang out in a flash of fire and fury, not even bothering with a catchphrase as he launched chaos into the crowd of hardened criminals. Amerie did her best to ignore the noises of death and dying behind her, holding her eyes on a circuit -- down the tunnel, up to one side of the canyon, around the walls, back down the tunnel. It required her to whip her head, her vision blurring as the pain built in her skull, but that wasn’t enough for her to miss the movement down the passage from which they had come. She aimed carefully, fired 1-2-3, paused to reevaluate, fired again. The movement stopped, and she took a moment to scan quickly along the perimeter above them again. Motion again in the corner of her eye; she fired without really looking, peered intently down the tunnel…

A strangled human cry behind her. Eyes dart up. Gromflomite on the ridge. Fire 1-2-3. Hole in his head, wings fluttering as he falls forward. 

“ _ SHIT SHIT SHIT!” _ Rick screamed behind her. She turned, time seeming to move at a vastly different speed than it was a split second before. Rick --  _ her  _ Rick, she thought before correcting herself -- C-137 was spattered with blood of several colors. She couldn’t understand the problem until she realized that the other Rick standing next to him didn’t have a head.

There were other shooters on the ridge, but it seemed to take real effort for her to tear her gaze from the look of dismay on C-137’s face. It took whole seconds -- minutes, it felt -- to get her gun up, to fire on the encroaching guards.

Aim. 1-2-3.

Aim. 1-2-3.

Aim--

Flash of white in front of her. Hand on her arm, pulling her toward the green glow that almost always --  _ almost always, don’t get too sure of things _ \-- meant safety…

And then her body slammed into the metal table of the mess hall, head striking the surface hard enough to make her see entire constellations. 

Rick started yelling long before the ringing in her ears had faded. “-- art of ‘watch for snipers’ do you not understand?! I-i-it was like shooting fish in a fucking barrel there!”

“There were people coming down the tunnel,” was what she tried to say, but even to her ears it came out as something like, “Thur pope clown thinel.” She shook her head, breathed deep, tried again. “People in tunnel,” she said, this time more clearly. 

But Rick was still ranting. “I-i-if you’re not up to this shit, you’re supposed to fucking say so,” he said as he handled her like she was one of his scrap metal inventions, pushing her down to sit on a bench and twisting her head in his hands. 

Her eyes drooped. She wondered if she would ever wake up again. She decided she was okay if she didn’t.

“Stay with me, bitch,” Rick snapped, his hand striking her face. “Y-y-you don’t get off the hook that easily.”

Right. Right. She had a job to do. Maybe not for her Morty, her Beth, but for the others, the others that would be left in Rick C-fucking-137’s hands if she didn’t get her shit together. “I’m okay,” she slurred.

Rick snorted. “H-how long since you slept?” he asked. His fingers were running over her forehead, and only then did she register the blood that was dripping into her eye.

“You don’t sleep,” she retorted, cringing a little from his touch. “Sleep… for the weak.” Squanchy was there, big eyes looking alarmed when they appeared at Rick’s elbow. She reached for him, felt her hand brush against fur. “‘M fine,” she asserted again, forcing herself to sit up straighter.

But they were talking like she wasn’t there. “P-502 is dead,” Rick said. “H-h-how much K-lax have you been giving her?”

“The usual cut,” Squanchy said. “She squanched like she was used to it.”

“Fuck, Squanchy!” Rick spat. “Ameries don’t know shit!”

“Hey!” she shouted. “Hey! Fuck off! You’d still be in max sec if it weren’t for me!”

“I-I’d be in interrogation and -- and on my way to t-taking down the whole fucking Federation if it weren’t for you!” Rick’s spittle hit her face as he yelled at her. 

Squanchy forced himself between them, physically. “Okay, Amerie,” he said in a sing-song tone, “we’re gonna just squanch along to dreamland now.”

“Don’t you dare!” she spat, but it was too late. A needle slid into her neck from somewhere, and her eyelids got so,  _ so  _ heavy. “No,” she muttered, “no, don’t do this. Mor...ty.” Her mouth worked, trying to make sounds . “I have to… Beth… fuck… Be…”

 

*****

 

They carried Amerie to her cot, Rick grabbing her under her armpits and Squanchy hiking up her ankles to keep them from dragging on the floor. “What the squanch happened?” Squanchy asked as he tugged Amerie’s boots off. 

“Th-the intel she had was bad,” Rick said, slumping against the wall and fumbling for his flask. A Zerillian had landed a couple of solid punches to his ribs before he’d blown the fucker’s brains out, and he had a laser graze on one thigh he’d have to see to, but first he needed a damn drink. “We--EURRP -- we ended up with two prison gangs  _ and _ the Feds on us.” He drained the last of the vodka and threw the empty flask across the room. “Sh-sh-she was too fucking -- too fucking high or tired or some shit!” he roared. “Didn’t see the damn snipers even though I-I-I -- even though I told her to watch for them!”

“Calm the squanch down, Rick,” Squanchy said, tossing a blanket over Amerie’s limp form and shoving Rick back out into the mess hall. “It’s not like you’ve never squanched a mission.”

Rick rolled his eyes. Of course, Squanchy  _ would _ bring up Basalt-7. “B-b-bite me,” he snapped.

Squanchy narrowed his eyes. “What’s squanchin’ your squanch, Rick?” he asked sourly. “You pissed because someone other than you is in charge? Or maybe because your ex is in there squanchin’ all those other Ricks?” Rick couldn’t help the way he flinched a little. He tried to pass it off as a twitch from the laser burn, but Squanchy wasn’t fooled. He jumped up on the table so he was eye-to-eye with Rick, claws digging into the lapels of Rick’s coat. “It. Doesn’t. Squanchin. Matter,” he said in a low growl. “Not so long as the squanchin’ Feds could squanch the whole damn multiverse any day now. Not so long as we can squanchin’ do something about it.” He took a breath, gripped a little tighter. “Birdperson did not squanchin’ die so you could squanch about the people fighting with you.”

He pushed Rick away with enough force that Rick had to take a step back to keep from falling on his ass. For a long moment, yellow cat eyes bored into dark human ones, but the memory of Birdperson tumbling from his nuptial nest, riddled with holes, made something inside Rick fracture, and his shoulders slumped. “Right,” he said quietly.

Squanchy nodded, and the ire faded from his face to be replaced by his usual chipper demeanor. “So what’s the plan?”

“First, y-you’re gonna patch me up,” Rick said, lifting his arm to peer down at the laser burn. “Th-th-then, we’ll take a look at Amerie’s list and see who the next Rick -- who the next target is, what kind of -- what intel she’s got on him and the Feds there.” He looked back up at Squanchy, a little smirk crossing his lips. “L-l-looks like it’s gonna be you and me on this one.”

Squanchy smiled widely back. “Now that’s what I’m squanchin’ about!” he said.

Amerie had left her computer on the table before they’d left, so Rick booted it up while Squanchy slapped a skin strip over his injury, then helpfully passed him a bottle of beer. Apparently, the girl had been looking forward to exactly this kind of contingency since the laptop immediately took Rick to file of incarcerated Ricks, but any attempt to access anything else put him up against a firewall. He picked at it for a few minutes with a vague idea of looking at the dossier she had on him, but it quickly became apparent that Amerie was good enough that breaking into this thing was going to take some serious work on his part, and he just didn’t feel like putting in the effort. At least not at the moment.

“Squ -- EURRP -- Squanchy, how many -- how many Ricks have we pulled?” he asked, scrolling through the list of Ricks.

“Nine,” Squanchy said without stopping to think. 

“So P-502 would have been number ten.” He scowled deeply. At the rate they were going, they might get through twenty Ricks, but Rick wasn’t sure they could even keep that rate up. They were running low on portal fluid, and making more took time, not to mention that Rick was just piecing together whatever shitty weaponry he could during their down time. If he could get one of the other Ricks to help with the artillery, he could focus on more pressing things, but glancing through the documents on the Ricks they’d already lifted reminded him that they were top priorities because they were weak-willed, stupid pussies.

Rick sighed, deciding to just move on the next Rick on the list…

Who just so happened to be the Rick from a dimension where Rick was one of the aliens that Unity had assimilated. 

Un-fucking-believable.

“Squanchy,” Rick said, waving the beer bottle over his head, “I’m gonna need something stronger than this shit.”

 

*****

 

After trying to do this shit with Amerie, being back in the line of fire with Squanchy felt like slipping on a favorite pair of underwear. Rick didn't have to say a word about the two Gromflomite guards around the corner; he just flicked his eyes and Squanchy nodded to the right, gripping his rifle tighter as they both took two breaths, perfectly timed despite the differences in lung capacity, then jumped out into the hallway. Rick shot the one on the left. Squanchy shot the one on the right.

Just like old times.

They'd debated the subtle approach that Amerie had favored, but Squanchy had pointed out that time was only running one way, and really, blowing the fuck out had always been more their style. So Rick had slapped together a few bombs and awAaAy they’d gone. This time, Amerie’s intel was good; the coordinates she had listed in Rick AD-47’s folder took them into a level 9 bathroom as predicted. “ _ Fuck _ ,” Rick breathed, glancing at the signs that labeled the various offices on this corridor. “I could -- I-I-I could do so much damage from here.”

“Get yer squanch outta yer squanch,” Squanchy growled, tugging him down in time to avoid the sweeping eye of a security drone. “We’ve got one job right now.”

Still, Rick figured a well-placed bomb in the Office of Currency Exchange and Regulation would cause  _ quite _ a distraction and be a bone-dry middle finger straight up the Federation’s ass.

Squanchy was just launching himself over one of the dead guards when that bomb went off, followed by the one Rick had planted in the Office of Transportation Safety on level 7, then the one he flushed down a toilet and straight into the Central Waste and Energy Reclamation Facilty, cutting off all non-emergency power functions. If the station wasn't already on high-alert for them, it was now.

“Riki-tiki-tavi!” Rick whooped, scooping Squanchy up to his shoulder as he ran past his friend, pellmell toward the emergency stairwell, now unlocked due to the power outage, that would take them down to the S-block cells, where political prisoners were held in special isolation chambers. With his legs wrapped firmly around Rick’s neck and using his tail for balance, Squanchy twisted this way and that, sniping the Federation goons that had the misfortune of choosing this particular route. At the appropriate door, Rick took a second to glance out the narrow window before springing through and rolling behind a conveniently placed pillar. Squanchy scurried up the metal without prompting, his claws piercing handholds a lot more easily that Rick really liked to imagine for someone who regularly got in his face. The cat alien managed to gently shift aside one of the ceiling plates and crawl in before any of the panicked guards noticed the noise, and the first one that wandered over to look for the source was rewarded with a plasma bolt through the side of his head. 

The plan at this point was simple: Squanchy located the cell holding AD-47, dropped down inside, used a micro H-bomb to blow the door (which was not going to budge without power, part of the safety protocols), then Rick would portal their asses out of there. In the meantime, Rick made sure nobody noticed Squanchy crawling around in the ceiling by being generally loud, violent, and obnoxious.

It was a plan that played to his strengths.

Using an X-ray overlay on his cybernetic eye, Rick followed Squanchy through the rows of cells, causing mayhem and misery wherever he went. It was pathetically easy, with so many of the usual guard contingent called away to help in other parts of the station, but Rick did it as loudly as possibly, even pulled out a few of his favorite lines from  _ Two Brothers _ before deciding he was trying too hard and going back to just shooting people.

Eventually, he saw Squanchy bones drop down inside one of the cells and he pulled back to a safe distance. A minute later, he door blew off the hinges and straight out, embedding sharp twists of metal into the opposite wall. Rick pushed into through the smoke, coming face-to-face with Rick AD-47. The blue bastard’s mouth dropped suddenly when he saw Rick. “Unity?” he said, confused, then shaking his head hard. “W-w-what the -- why the fuck did you a-a-assimilate a Rick?”

“O-o-o-o great!” Rick snapped, tossing his rifle to Squanchy, who caught it easily and took up a post at the now-gaping hole. “I-i-isn’t this a conveniently tidy l-little parallel w-w-we’ve got here.” He pulled out his portal gun and fired at the wall. “In my dimension,” he said harshly, pushing AD-47 toward the green glow, “Unity assimilated you guys.”

AD-47 made a startled noise as he went through, Rick on his heels. Seconds later, Squanchy popped through, cackling madly. “Squanch me!” he shouted. “We squanchin’ did it!”

“Y-y--EURRGH -- yeah,” Rick said, rolling his eyes, “o-only -- only sixteen more assholes to go.” 

A couple of Unity’s avatars had been waiting for them in the mess hall, and they were eyeing AD-47 suspiciously. “Rick,” Unity asked, “what the hell is this?”

“H-h-he’s a Rick from a dimension where you assimilated Earth instead of whatever dumb place you -- you all came from,” Rick answered, already feeling the adrenaline crash coming on. Some purple hexa would really hit the spot, but he doubted Squanchy had anything that designer around, so he’d make do with another small hit of K-lax, possibly after a nap. Blue Rick and Unity were still sizing each other up uncomfortably. “L-l-l-look, AD-47,” Rick said, sighing heavily, “all Unity wants to do is take you i-into another room where there are lots of other Ricks getting blasted and f-fuck your brains out. Is that g-gonna be a -- i-i-is there a problem here?”

“Yes,” AD-47 and Unity said at the same time. “I’m drawing a line on this one,” Unity went on. “It’s too weird.” The two avatars left, heading back into the barracks. Some especially lewd noises escaped when Unity opened the door.

“W-w-w-what the hell is even going on here?” AD-47 asked. “Y-you with the Citadel?” 

“N-no, I’m not with the fu--EURRGH--cking Citadel,” Rick spat. “W-word is one of the Ricks that was in lock-up was gonna flip, giving the Feds portal tech. W-w-we’re trying to make sure that doesn’t -- we’re trying to shut that shit down.”

AD-47’s eyes narrowed slightly. “S-s-so you think I was gonna squeal?”

Rick shrugged, expression cool. “A-according the the list, you’re eleventh most likely.”

“Th-th-that’s because they have m-m-my Unity hostage!” AD-47 suddenly raged. “Th-they have a whole -- a whole f-fucking satellite laser system waiting to blow the whole damn planet! W-w-w-with every  _ last  _ piece of U-unity on the… on the surface…” The guy was losing it. Rick cringed; he’d never been this close to seeing another Rick cry and it made him nauseated.

“A bluff,” Amerie said from the doorway of dry storage. She was leaning heavily against the wall and her eyes still looked a little dead, but she pressed on. “I mean, as far as I know the death satellites are real, but Unity managed to get off planet with a small group of humans before the Feds could close the net.” She blinked slowly, swayed. “I’ve been in contact with it.”

“S...seriously?” AD-47 asked.

“Yeah,” Amerie said, taking a few shaky steps forward and slumping onto one of the benches. “So chill the fuck out.”

Blue Rick collapsed onto the bench beside her, cradling his head in his hands. “J-jesus,” he breathed. 

“No,” the woman corrected, “Amerie.” 

Rick rolled his eyes. At least now he knew she was a shit to every Rick, not just him. “I-I gotta crash for a while,” he said, shuffling toward the cot in the corner. “This is too fu--EURRGH--cking dumb.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a real slow burn kinda story, but I appreciate y'all sticking with me. I'm hoping you'll find the pay-off worth it.


	5. Dark Mortynight of the Soul

With AD-47 making portal fluid and building their arsenal, Rick, Squanchy, and Amerie threw themselves into recovering as many Ricks as possible in the little time they had left. Two of them would go out while one rested, ate, and prepped. Amerie spent her downtime scouring her contacts for new details. She only slept when Squanchy dosed her, which she accepted with a mere modicum of resistance. It was better than laying there with nothing to focus on but the gnawing grief in her gut.

She heard Rick and Squanchy fighting sometimes, something about a signal and their crew. Probably planning for their inevitable failure and the pointless battle against the Feds that would follow.

Most of the time, if she thought about it, Amerie felt pretty sure that, whether they managed to save the multiverse or not, she’d be putting a plasma bolt through her head at the end of this.

Somewhere around 50 hours to the end of the time gap, Amerie and Squanchy stumbled into the mess hall empty-handed. Unity’s avatar blinked at them, then shrugged and walked away in a move that was becoming increasingly common; it became less and less communicative the more Ricks it kept busy with substance abuse and sex. C-137 and AD-47 were both hunched over a collection of half-completed portal fuel canisters, both glancing up with the same exhausted look on their faces. “H-h-how d’you fuck it up this time?” C-137 asked crossly.

“He was dead when we got there,” Amerie said, setting a bag of explosives carefully on the table. “The Feds had gone too far with the torture.”

“W-were they using that-- that brain machine?” AD-47 asked.

Amerie shook her head. “Just regular old 'beat the shit out of you and hope you talk’ shit.”

“Amateurs,” the Ricks said at the same time, then shot each other dirty looks.

Squanchy shuffled away, tail hanging low, to find a bunk to crash in for his break. Amerie grabbed a ration pack and sat down to eat and review what was left of the Rick list. Realistically, they'd be able to pull maybe four more in the time they had left. There were still eleven Ricks on the list.  _ No pressure, Amerie, _ she thought.  _ Just pick the right ones. _

An alert pinged on her screen, a message from Morty C-18ξ4 sent to her TRAFFIC username a couple hours previously, then another, and another. Amerie frowned, opening the transmissions. It was possible that Morty was letting her know his Rick had escaped Federation custody -- Rick C-18ξ4 was at the bottom of the priority list because of exactly this potentiality -- but she didn't want to get her hopes up. She skimmed the messages quickly, then went back through again to make sure she was reading this right.

 

_ 16.04.17::14.35.54 _

_ Morty C-18ξ4: hey, i just heard from another kid at school whose mom works at the same place my dad works that some Feds took Dad away. any idea whats going on? _

 

_ 16.04.17::15.57.31 _

_ Morty C-18ξ4: mom isnt home either. i called her work and they said man in a uniform came for her. im really starting to freak out here. what should i do? _

 

_ 16.04.17::17.03.15 _ C-18ξ4

_ Morty C-18ξ4: THERE AR GROMFLOMITES OUTSIDE THEY SAY THEY WANT TO TALK WHAT THE FCUK SHOULD I DO _

 

“Shit,” Amerie said as the pieces came together. “Motherfuckin’ cocksucker! Rick, we gotta problem.” She was already up and tugging the bag of explosives over her shoulder.

C-137 eyed her lethargically. “W-w-what’s the rush?”

“The Feds grabbed C-18ξ4's Morty and Beth,” Amerie explained, grabbing one of the recently-finished fuel cells and jamming it into her portal gun. She glanced at her watch. “They got Morty four hours ago. We’ve got to hurry on this one.”

Rick belched, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Y-y-you really think them picking up a M-Morty is gonna make a difference?” He gestured in the general direction of the barracks. “D-d-do you know how-- how many of their Mortys were being held?”

“Seven,” Amerie answered without thinking, instead studying Rick’s eyes. “How drunk are you?”

“W-why does this Morty matter?” Rick returned, giving her a glare. AD-47 even gave her a little side-eye.

“C-18ξ4 gets irrational when it comes to his Morty,” Amerie explained, slinging her rifle across her body. “He actually  _ cares _ about the kid.” 

“Barf,” AD-47 said under his breath, but C-137 looked pensive, and that was who Amerie needed on her side right now. “If he’s gonna break,” she went on, meeting C-137 eye-to-eye, “it’s gonna be now, so we’ve got to move. How drunk are you?”

Rick rolled his eyes, but he at least stood up, patting down his pockets until he pulled out his own portal gun. “J-j-just drunk enough for this shit,” he said, replacing the fuel cell, then taking a hit on his flask.

“Good,” she said, setting the coordinates for C-18ξ4 as Rick grabbed a nearby rifle and shoved a handful of items into his coat.

Amerie was relieved when the portal took them into a break-room like she was expecting. The two Gromflomites standing around drinking Flarkmark coffee were down before Rick was even through, and Amerie didn’t wait for his commentary to head the nearest guard’s communicator, pecking at the interface until she reached the prisoner database. “He’s in interrogation,” she said after a moment, then flipped through a few screens. “Beth and Jerry are being held in min sec gen pop.” She couldn’t suppress the malicious little grin that painted her face when she imagined Jerry in a cell with aliens leering at him. “Morty’s… shit, Morty’s in interrogation too.”

“F-fine, let’s just get up there,” Rick said behind her, still clearly put out by the whole situation. He dug around in the bag of explosives and started plastering a few to the wall behind them.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, making sure to keep her eyes and rifle on the break room door.

“I-i-interrogation-- EURRGH-- interrogation rooms are three floors up,” Rick said nonchalantly as he armed the charges and quickly flipped one of the tables on its side. Amerie ducked behind it, pressing into Rick’s side in the tight space as the wall shattered with a muffled  _ poof _ , shooting pieces of shredded metal and insulation around them. The newly-made hole showed a space between the walls that they’d fit through, but only just. Amerie dropped the bag she was carrying and instead shoved a few of the explosive packets in her pockets, then pushed a few handfuls to Rick, who eyed the bag with a gleam in his eye. “Y-y-you start climbing. Three floors exactly. I’m gonna create a distraction.”

Amerie didn’t hesitate, scrambling into the wall. She grabbed at pipes and planted the toes of her boots on scraps of ledges, sometimes just wedging her back against the surface behind her and edging up as best she could. She stopped at a ventilation duct at what she assumed was three floors up, tapping the side to determine how thick the material was, then pulling out a mini blow-torch to cut a panel out of the side. Below her, she heard Rick grunting and muttering. “Is this the right one?” she called softly.

“Y-y-yes, idiot,” Rick spat back. “B-b-better hurry your ass up if you don’t wanna get caught in the-- in the blowback from the bomb I left down there.”

Amerie hauled herself into the duct and scrunched around to peek through the vent. It looked like some kind of control room. One Gromflomite -- an officer, judging by his lack of wings -- sat at a bank of computers. She could shoot him, but it would take one shot to puncture the vent and a second to put him down, if she was lucky and hit him in the head. Rick probably had something better. She reached a hand back and out the hole she’d made in the duct, then used her fingers to spell in sign language, “One target. Need something small.”

“W-w-what is this?” Rick muttered. “A-- A Seal Team Ricks operation now? W-w-with the doofy hand signals a-a-and the whole sneaking thing.” But he still pressed something into her hand -- a small syringe filled with a dark orange liquid. Amerie slipped the needle through the slats of the vent and pushed the plunger. The orange liquid became a gas as it dribbled toward the floor, and within seconds the Gromflomite was choking and Amerie started up the mini blow-torch again to cut out the vent cover.

She tumbled out of the vent awkwardly, falling heavily on her side and scrambling back onto her feet before Rick could land on top of her. They stood together in front of the bank of monitors, searching for a familiar face. “There,” Rick said, pointing at a screen that showed a Morty strapped to a table and screaming. Amerie’s stomach dropped, and she gritted her teeth to stifle the sudden rush of bile. “And there’s the Rick,” Rick went on, pointing out another feed.

“Right,” Amerie said. “You go after the Morty; he won’t recognize me. I’ll get the Rick.” 

Rick nodded, glanced down at his watch. “We’ve got about 60 seconds before that bomb goes off. Probably shouldn’t be in this room.” He moved to the door, lowering his body and peaking around the corner in either direction. “Looks clear. Let’s move.” He dashed into the hallway. Amerie darted after him…

And immediately felt like she’d been hit by a truck. 

She flew through the air to hit the wall behind her, bouncing against the metal before crashing to the floor in a heap. She coughed and gasped, trying to get some air back in her lungs, but when she rolled to her hands and knees, she was hit again with incredible force and flung back into the wall before landing heavily on one hip. 

Her ears were ringing, but she could vaguely make out the sound of her own groans. At first she wasn’t able to see, then she realized she was face down and managed to turn her head, sending a shot of pain through her neck and back. She saw a white blur nearby, then a brown blob that seemed to be moving. She blinked, sucked in some air, then looked again. A tall Gromflomite was marching down the hall, some kind of small cannon on his shoulder. Rick was on the ground a little ways in front of her, not moving. “Stay still, human,” the Gromflomite said in cultured Common, “or I will be forced to fire upon you again.”

Amerie groaned and flopped forward. This was it. She wouldn’t even just die, like she had hoped. Instead, she was going to end up in a goddamn cell for the rest of her days, slowly going mad.  _ Fuck that shit _ , she thought.  _ If I’m going out, I’m going out covered in blood _ . She was just about to try to get up again, with some vague thought of ripping the Federation asshole’s arms out of his too-many sockets, when the floor below her shook and rattled with an explosion. The Gromflomite started, head jerking around, and Amerie just barely caught sight of Rick raising a pistol out of the corner of her eye, painting the hallway with blue blood. “Fuck,” he groaned, pulling himself upright, then repeated the expletive several times. “Y-y-y-you dead over there?”

“Maybe?” Amerie replied, managing to get at least onto her hands and knees. Something wet was trickling down her neck. 

“We-- we gotta move.” Rick hauled himself over to her, sticking a needle in her arm without warning. In the space of a breath, Amerie felt her head clear and was able to get back to her feet, though she still leaned against the wall. “What was that?” she asked.

“S-s-sonic cannon,” Rick answered, sticking a syringe in his own arm, “for when they want to-- to take you alive.”

“And the shot?”

Rick waved one arm wildly while he hefted his rifle with the other. “Don’t worry about it! We’ve got to fucking move!”

So Amerie did, putting one foot in front of the other and checking around corners and shooting her rifle for all she was worth. Eventually the found the corridor where C-18ξ4 Rick and Morty were being held, spitting up to find the individual cells. Amerie approached the door with caution, keeping her back to the wall as she slid up to it -- partially to help her stay on her feet -- and using the shiny side of her gun to get a look through the window. Two guards, one prissy human in an officer’s uniform, one Rick staring at a screen and looking like he was going to puke. 

_ Okay, Amerie _ , she thought, taking a deep breath until she felt a distinct pain in one of her ribs.  _ This is easy. Easy peasy. It’s cherry pie. You just shoot everyone, then get the Rick. Then you find your Rick and his Morty. Then you get your asses out of here. Then, and only then, can you lay down and die. Sweet, sticky cherry pie. _

She shot one of the Gromflomites as soon as she jerked open the door, then rolled to the side to get the Rick between her and the Feds, hoping they’d at least hesitate before risking their prize prisoner. It paid off; the Gromflomite’s barrel wavered for the barest sliver of a second and Amerie took the chance to line up her shot and hit him dead between the eyes. The human had turned to run, but Amerie managed to spray a few bullets across her thighs, enough to put her on the ground for the moment. “G-g-get me the fuck out of here!” the Rick snapped. “I-I-I-I gotta get to Morty!”

“Chill, Rick,” Amerie said flatly as she worked on his restraints. “Rick’s gone after him.” She glanced at the screen in time to see chaos break out in Morty’s cell. “There he goes now.” After she freed one of Rick’s hands, she slapped her pistol in it, then hunkered down on his other side so that if he had to shoot anyone coming through the door, she wouldn’t be in the way. Two bolts flew over her head, and she jerked around to see the human face down in a growing pool of blood, two new holes in her head. Amerie tried to refocus on releasing the cuff that held C-18ξ4’s left arm to the bed, but her fingers were suddenly stupid. Out of her periphery, she could see that he was glued to the screen, hopefully watching Rick performing the same task for his Morty. “How long have they been working him over?” Amerie asked, digging around in a pocket for her multitool when her attempt to circumvent the security on the device failed. 

“I-I dunno,” C-18ξ4 said. “A few hours, maybe?” Amerie wedged a spike into one of the small gaps in the metal and primed it to fire a micro-ranged EMP. “D-d-did you know they’d t-taken him?” C-18ξ4 asked above her.

“Yeah.” With a quiet crackle, the cuffs lights went dead and Amerie physically pulled the pieces apart after returning her tool to her pocket. “Found out about an hour ago.”

C-18ξ4 pulled his arm up and clambered to his feet. “What the fuck-- w-what’re you doing here?”

Amerie shifted back to the door, stepping over the woman on the floor, to look as far down the hall as she could. “Me and that other Rick are breaking Ricks out of prison before one of them sells us all down the river.”

C-18ξ4 huffed a cold laugh behind her. “E-e-everybody’s got a breaking point, I g-guess.”

“We’re gonna take it easy down this hall,” she said. “You watch our six. Rick’ll be headed our way with your Morty, then we’ll all portal out of here.”

They edged down the hall, dealing efficiently when the resistance they met, especially when the last squad sent their way got caught in the crossfire Rick created coming at them from the other side. He had the Morty on his back, clinging to his neck and looking an unhealthy shade of green. “C-c’mon, Amerie!” Rick roared. “W-w-where’s my fucking portal!”

“Take the rifle too,” Amerie ordered C-18ξ4, who shot any Gromflomite that even thought about turning toward his grandson. Pulling her portal gun from her belt and glancing down to double check the coordinates, she aimed carefully and fired between two guards, creating a portal on Rick’s side of the room, which he quickly disappeared through, dropping a small explosive in his wake. The resulting  _ boom _ and sudden rain of insect parts gave Amerie and C-18ξ4 enough of an opening to jump through after him…

And back into the safety of the bunker.

Somehow the way the ventilation system wasn’t entirely able to rid the air of the smell of vomit and sex was starting to feel like home.

C-18ξ4 had pulled his Morty from Rick’s back, cradling him tightly. “R-r-r-r-rick,” the Morty sobbed, tucking his face into his grandpa’s neck and clinging to the orange jumpsuit. C-18ξ4 made a shushing noise, then glared at AD-47, who looked vaguely disgusted. “Y-y-you got a damn first aid kit in this bitch o-o-or what?” he spat. AD-47 rolled his eyes and stalked off to find their medical supplies while C-18ξ4 sat heavily on the couch, pulling Morty into his lap.

For her part, Amerie slumped down to the floor, suddenly aware of how badly she hurt all over. Rick was already down there, chugging on his flask. When he stopped to breathe, she held out her hand, and after he lifted an eyebrow at her presumption, he passed it over and she swallowed a few mouthfuls as well, hiccuping a few little coughs when she handed it back. “I think,” she wheezed, “I think I might be dying.”

Rick grunted in agreement. “Th-th-they designed those s-s-sonic cannons for races with ex-- EURRGH-- exoskeletons,” he explained. “Lot-- lot fucking worse w-w-when your bones are on the inside.”

“I’m just… I’m just gonna lay here a while.”


	6. Waiting for Rickdot

They sent C-18ξ4 and his Morty off with some supplies to rescue his Beth before the Feds got any bright ideas. Amerie stayed stretched out in the floor the whole time, dead to the world. Rick couldn’t really blame her; she caught more of the blast than he had and he felt like his joints were crunching together every time he moved.

So he drank himself into a semi-stupor and collapsed on a cot for a few hours to let the nanomachines in his system do their thing.

He woke up to Unity sitting on the cot next to him, resting a bearded face on a sizable fist. It waited until he had rubbed at his eyes enough to see clearly. “This is more Ricks than you told me,” it said flatly, clearly tired. “I’m starting to have trouble maintaining control.”

“I-I-I know,” Rick said, sighing. “I-it’s more than I thought we’d g-get to, honestly.”

“How many more, Rick?” it asked. “Because even one will be a severe strain for me at the moment.”

Rick glanced at his watch. Forty-two hours left. No way he’d be good to go for at least another twelve. He lifted his head enough to see Amerie’s boots still sticking out from behind the table. She might be out entirely. “O-o-one, maybe two more,” he said, letting his head fall back on the thin pillow. “Th-then we just wait and see if the-- if the world ends.”

Unity sighed heavily, scrubbed a hand down the face of its avatar. “Okay, two more. That’s it.” It sighed again. “I am way too fucking high right now.”

Rick couldn’t stop the hand that reached out to run up the avatar’s spine. “W-w-well as long as we’re waiting around for the world to end,” he said with a smirk, “w-w-we could have some fun.”

The smile that Unity turned on him was sad instead of lustful or teasing, and Rick’s stomach clenched. “It’s over,” Unity said softly, the avatar’s voice husky and low. “We need to just let it be over.”

The stabbed-in-the-gut feeling from when he first read its Dear Rick letter came back full force. “F-f-fine,” Rick said, rolling over so he could curl around the pain in his stomach, his back was to the room, Unity included. “Th-then let me sleep.”

They ended up pulling another two Ricks -- Rick and Squanchy running one, and Amerie and Squanchy running the other. At that point they had about six hours left on the clock, but it was pretty clear that none of them were up to going up against the Galactic Federation in any dimension again. So they sat down out of earshot of Unity and AD-47 to talk about what was next.

“I don’t know how long it will take for us to know,” Amerie admitted, head resting in one hand while the other held onto a glass of of the whiskey they were sharing. “We’re basically waiting until one of my contacts reports something gone wrong.”

“I squanched all our old crew,” Squanchy said. “They’re ready to bunker down if things go squanchy.”

Amerie hummed a little acknowledgement but didn’t ask for any details. Because she already had them, Rick suspected, a frown deepening the lines in his face. As soon as they had the Feds off Earth, he was going to find out exactly what Amerie knew about him. Until then... “S-s-so we just sit around and w-wait for you to get-- wait for someone to call you?” he asked.

Amerie shrugged. “Basically.” She rubbed the spot right between her eyes with the heel of her hand. “The odds are in our favor. Now we just have to hope that if there is a God, he isn’t a fucking Gromflomite.”

A heavy silence settled. Squanchy poured another round. “Well,” he said, in his weird high-pitched voice, “here’s to squanchin’ in that squancher’s composite eye.” He tossed back his drink, slamming the glass down. “Now, I’m gonna find somewhere to squanch.”

Leaving Rick with Amerie and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. Time stretched out as they sat there, drinking… pouring… drinking…

“I bet it was C-18ξ4,” Amerie said suddenly. She was slumped across the table, chin resting on one arm.

“W-w-what the fuck you talking about?” Rick slurred, looking up from the hydrothermic recalcification device AD-47 had been working on.. 

“I bet C-18ξ4 was the one who cracked,” she explained. “We… we got all the highest priority… the most likely to break… before we went to G-xx1.” She stopped, brow furrowed. “Either my analysis was all shit, or it was C-18ξ4.”

Rick scoffed. “Y-y-y-you think the universe w-works in either/or?”

She looked up sharply, slamming a palm onto the table. “You don’t understand,” she said, with real heat behind her eyes. “C-18ξ4 was the only Rick less likely to break than you.  _ Unless they threatened his Morty _ . And the chance of them doing that…” She dropped her head again. 

Rick rolled his eyes; someone couldn’t hold their liquor. “W-w-why wouldn’t they grab his M-M--EURRRGH--ty?”

“Because he extracted the same promises of immunity for his family that you did,” Amerie said, still not looking up. “And there was no reason to think the Feds would break that.”

Rick almost decided to use that opening to demand some answers, then realized that his arrest records were probably open access by this point. Amerie wouldn’t need insider intel for the report of the officer that answered his call on the tip line. So he just ignored it. 

For a while, he thought Amerie might have fallen asleep with her face smashed into the tabletop. Then she said, “I’m sorry about Unity.”

“W-w-what?” 

“I’m sorry Unity shot you down. Having your ex around must suck. Thanks for taking one for the team.”

Rick’s face started to burn. “Y-y-y-you were just laying there, l-listening? Y-y-you piece of shit--”

“Can’t blame me when you’re having conversations in the open,” she slurred, tilting her head to look at him. Her eyes were glassy and kept darting around, like she was having trouble looking at just one thing.

“Doesn’t make you a-any less of a piece of shit.”

Amerie just layed there grinning at him, fingers picking through her short hair until it was a crazier mess than his. “Yeah, I s’pose I am.” Her face got more serious. “If… if we’re just waiting for all this to end…” She stalled, took a few breaths, looked like she might fall asleep, then started again. “Since this is the end,” she said, sounding more sure, “I wouldn’t mind being your end-of-the-line fuck.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her, but the same slight smile was plastered on her face. He gave himself a moment to consider it. Amerie wasn’t exactly unattractive. She had Diane’s nose and warm, generous mouth, but there was also a softness to her body that proved she had no trace of Sanchez in her. Stretched across the table, with her hand tugging through her brown hair and gazing up at him with inviting eyes, she was almost pretty for a drunk girl. Plus, there was something about believing you were going to die that made sex particularly exciting…

But she was very,  _ very _ drunk.

Rick was not a man of many morals, but he’d always considered rapists to be the scum of the galaxy, and there was no way Amerie could give consent like this.

“No,” he said flatly, turning his eyes back to the machine he was taking apart. He waited for some kind of explosion, already reaching for the bottle to steel himself with a little more whiskey, but Amerie just shrugged and said, “Okay.”

She fell asleep in a puddle of drool, back rising and falling in a steady rhythm, fingers twitching every now and again as she dreamed.

 

*****

 

Amerie didn’t quite realize how terrible she’d been feeling until she woke up the next day only mildly inconvenienced by what should have been a killer hangover. Her mouth felt like someone had coated it with a layer of wet wool and left it to dry, but her back didn’t really hurt any more than it had since the sonic cannon, even though she’d slept on the table. She rubbed her hands over her face, wiping off the drying spittle that coated on cheek and deliberately reminded herself that her days of breaking Ricks out of jail were over, that all she had to do today was watch the feeds for anything suspicious.

When she’d started this whole last-ditch effort to save the multiverse, she hadn’t explained to anyone in her network what was going on. Only a very small number of them knew she was Amerie G-xx1; most only knew her by her username SawWhet, the TRAFFIC Master, and when SawWhet asked for information, no one questioned it, especially when they so frequently returned the favor down the road. 

But with this… Amerie didn’t have time to worry about putting out fires in other dimensions, especially when those fires maybe didn’t need to be started in the first place, as long as her plan went through. Which also meant that no one in the TRAFFIC network knew they should have their eyes open for Gromflomites from other dimensions. She was familiar enough with Federation tactics to know that they’d go for wide net, showing up in as many dimensions as they could at once to surprise the Ricks there. Someone in her network would notice  _ something _ .

But first, she needed some water, so she heaved herself to her feet and padded toward the kitchen area, passing Rick, who snored on the couch…

And choked back a groan as she remembered part of the previous evening.  _ Fuck,  _ she thought,  _ that was a really dumb thing to do, Amerie _ . 

It wasn’t so much that she was horrified by her drunk-self propositioning a man more than twice her age who was, biologically speaking, her half-sister’s father. Good sex was good sex, and if she knew anything about Ricks, it was that they’d had plenty of experience. No, she was horrified by how she’d put their working relationship in jeopardy when there was still shit to get done. She considered the options as she pulled a jug of water from the fridge. Maybe Rick wouldn’t remember, or she could pretend that she didn’t remember, and they’d  just never talk about it. That would be best. And if Rick did remember and did bring it up, well, she’d tell him she was drunk and horny and leave it at that. Surely that was something he could understand.

She sighed, planting her back against the fridge door. Nothing to do about it now. Might as well shove it over to that pile in her brain that contained her crippling fear of possums, her inability to imagine a long-term romantic relationship that didn’t end in her tearing someone’s life apart with her existential crises, and her dead Morty and Beth.

She distracted herself by working her way through the TRAFFIC reports that had nothing to do with incarcerated Ricks that had been steadily pouring in despite her inattention. Reporters could provide their own tags for their information, but in order for them to be useful to her, Amerie had to evaluate each report and provide her own analysis and tags. Beth in J-294 might think it odd that her Rick had been gone from home for two months now, but Amerie was the only one who had access to everything, including Rick J-294’s log in at the Citadel rehab clinic following an especially nasty incident at Chez Rick’s. Not that it actually fit the definition of “rehab”…

But even with her network of thousands -- last count showed 2,004 members of TRAFFIC -- she could only get the tiniest slice of even the central finite curve. She’d started the network on a whim; the quarantine of G-xx1 meant that she wasn’t able to actually visit these other dimensions, so she’d made contact with others who could. It had been a project without a clear goal, other than trying to figure out if all Ricks were as terrible as hers, if all Beths put up with him, if all Mortys followed after him. But it had grown into something of a white whale -- if she could just figure out Rick in his Platonic ideal, then maybe she could figure out the universe, maybe nudge it in a direction that was a little less chaotic and brutal and cruel.

So she collected the reports. She brokered information trades across the multiverse. She recruited eyes and ears. She watched for trends and occasionally made suggestions to the floundering Morty or the concerned Birdperson.

Only now, hunched over her computer and reading a report about a Rick who had managed to get an Abradolf Linkler elected to public office, she felt the futility of it all in the pit of her soul. She was Sisyphus and Rick was a giant boulder; every time she thought she may have shifted him to higher ground, he rolled right back down, crushing her spirit along the way.

After she finished the gallon of water, Amerie started on what was left in the bottle of whiskey that had been left on the table. It wasn’t healthy, but neither was she at the moment.

People cycled through the mess hall around her. Unity came in and out, avatars tending to wobble and stumble more than before. Blue Rick cursed obscenely when he saw what Rick had done with his work while he was drunk. Squanchy would peep in every couple of hours, give Amerie a searching look, and at the slight shake of her head, disappear again. Eventually Rick woke up with a great deal of moaning and retching but didn’t actually lose whatever was left in his stomach, which Amerie took as a small win. He and Blue Rick almost immediately started bickering about the most efficient way to melt bones or some shit, so Amerie slid in a pair of earbuds and cranked some music. She set a timer on the laptop for keeping the optimal blood alcohol level for “still functional but not giving a fuck.”

The reports continued to trickle in.

She continued to tag and file them.

Hours later, one of her earbuds was suddenly jerked out of her ear. She looked up sharply, to see Rick hovering over her. “A-a-aren’t you a little young for Sonic Youth?” he asked with a sneer.

She shrugged. “Classics are classics for a reason.”

Rick snorted, held the earbud closer to his head to listen to a few seconds of “Silver Rocket.” “ _ Dirty _ is better,” he commented. 

She lifted an eyebrow. “We actually agree on something for once.”

Rick sat down next to her. “N-n-nothing yet?” he asked, changing topics without warning.

Amerie sighed. “Nothing beyond the usual bullshit. Linkler will be the next mayor of Chicago on Earth W-843.”

“S-s-seriously?!” Rick barked a laugh. “Th-that’s gonna be-- that’s gonna be a fucking disaster!” 

“Tell me about it,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “But, yeah, no signs of a multi-dimensional Federation strike force.” She chewed her lip. “I think we might have actually pulled this off.”

“G-g-g-good, because we’ve still-- y-you still have to help me get the Feds off Earth,” Rick answered, leaning back against the table and eyeing her with a certain amount of skepticism. “U-unless you were just talking a big game.”

“Deal’s a deal,” Amerie said sternly, meeting his gaze without flinching. “Don’t mistake me for a Rick.”

Rick snorted and looked away, and Amerie felt a small blossom of pride in her chest. “I’ve got a few ideas,” he said, and Amerie turned off the music to give him her full attention. “B-but we’ll need level 9 clearance on th-the Federation Central Station.”

A new message pinged on Amerie’s computer. She glanced at it, then turned back to Rick. “So we just portal in, yeah?”

“Wrong!” Rick spat. “The Feds have DNA-detecting death lasers all along that level. The second we stepped through the portal, we’d be disintegrated.”

Amerie hummed in thought. “I have schematics of the facility,” she said after a moment. “We might be able to find an alternate route to the control system. Disarm the lasers and whatnot.”

Another message pinged. She ignored it. Rick did not. “Y-y-your little fan club calling?” he asked, brows furrowing. “Oh n-no, go ahead and take care of it. D-don’t mind me…”

Amerie’s jaw clenched but she deliberately turned to the screen and opened the message box. “A Summer’s been spotted on the Citadel,” she said nonchalantly.

“W-who would take their S-Summer to the Citadel?” Rick looked incredulous. “That’s-- th-that’s asking for all kinds of trouble.”

Amerie read on without answering, eyes growing wide. “It’s Summer C-137ξ,” she said, looking up at Rick. “Your Summer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, folks. We're finally getting to S3E1.


	7. Between a Rick and a Hard Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hitting the events of "The Rickshank Redemption" in this one.

Amerie watched the changes that came over Rick’s face. First, humor, like she was telling him a joke. Then anger, like the joke she had told was not funny. Then skepticism, followed by dawning comprehension, which was immediately trailed by the hard lines of determination. In a matter of seconds, Rick said, “Alright, ch-ch-change in plans. I need to get into Citadel navigation.” He was on his feet, pacing, brows heavy over his eyes.

Amerie tapped her fingers against the table, infected by his agitation. If his Morty and Summer were at the Citadel, it probably meant that the Council had found out that Rick C-137 was in jail -- or at least supposed to be. As far as they knew, the Feds hadn’t publicized the escape of their most notorious criminal. And knowing the Council, they’d probably go for the search-and-destroy method of containing the problem. She'd be surprised if Morty and Summer got out of that unscathed.

“I… may have a way,” she said slowly, weighing the relative need against the seriousness of what she was considering.

Rick whipped around to glare at her, hands latching onto her shoulders. His eyes were wild, but she could see something of what she’d seen in C-18ξ4’s face, something that skirted at the edges of love, and she knew what she had to do. “There’s a zero-day in the security to the maintenance tunnels in Amerieville,” she explained. “We can exploit it to get into the tunnels undetected, then take them to the control levels.” She sighed. “The Ameries were saving it for a serious shit show, but…”

Rick was already moving away, completely unconcerned with her crisis of conscience. “The Horror is miles from control,” he raved, grabbing items from around the room. “Get your shit. We've gotta go.”

Amerie retrieved her knapsack and shoved her computer inside along with a handful of darkness bombs and the goggles Rick had made her. “L-l-leave your portal gun,” Rick ordered. “SQUANCHY!”

The cat alien appeared at a sprint. “What the squanch?” he wheezed.

“Th-th-the invasion's been diverted,” Rick explained, tossing Amerie a couple of pistols, which she obediently stowed in her pack. “We've gotta go-- gotta go rescue my idiot grandkids. You hold everyone here until you hear from me, then give AD-47 the portal gun and tell him to send all those assholes home.” 

Amerie passed the portal gun to Squanchy, who handled it tentatively, like he thought it might go off with the slightest jostle. “Can do, Rick,” he said, sounding confident despite his discomfort. 

Satisfied, Rick shot his own gun at the wall, filling the room with a green glow. Amerie cinched her bag shut and slung it on her back. Seized with a sudden sense of camaraderie, she grabbed Squanchy in a fierce hug. “Thanks,” she said.

“Any squanchin’ time,” he answered. He waved at Rick, who returned the gesture before dashing into the portal, Amerie hot on his heels.

 

*****

 

Rick had never been to Amerieville. He didn’t spend much time on the Citadel in general, and he had no interest in frequenting the district that had been colloquially labeled “the Horror” (and not just as a play on the 1979 thriller). Everywhere he looked Ameries were working, chatting, and living with those smug looks of superiority that could only be achieved through two X chromosomes and a high IQ. 

There were a handful of Ricks around, so he didn’t stick out too much as he trailed after G-xx1, who had blended into the crowd pretty quickly by hiking her knapsack up and strolling along. Rick had spared a moment to worry that her torn up shirt and heavy boots would elicit suspicion, but the Ameries were as varied as they could be with the same set of genes. No standard yellow shirt or brown pants. “I-i-it looks like a circus here,” he commented as an Amerie with a bright red mohawk passed them.

Amerie chuckled. “I guess since there’s so few of us, our efforts at individualism feel less futile. And we have a penchant for hair dye.”

“No shit,” Rick muttered, spying a bleach blonde Amerie in a cafe with a Rick, both hunched over a set of blueprints.

Amerie took a sudden right. “Amerieville’s only a few blocks,” she went on, glancing over her shoulder as they headed deeper down the alley. “There’s maybe a couple hundred that maintain residency here. Most of them hire themselves out to Ricks.” She laughed again at the face Rick made. “C’mon,” she cajoled, “we’ve managed almost two weeks without killing each other.”

Before he could answer, she was clambering through a small window at ground level. Rick took a long pull on his flask, flicking his eyes down both ends of the narrow passageway to check for tails, then slithered through the opening himself. Amerie was hunkered in from of the steel door at the far end of whoever’s basement this was, clearly ignoring the Council edict against tampering that was posted in big letter across it. Rick watched over her shoulder as she jacked her phone into a port on the wall began swiping through menus father than he could read them. After a minute of this, he started tapping his foot audibly, a small act of passive aggression. “A-any day now,” he snarked.

Amerie snorted. “Keep your panties on, old man.”

A grin spread across Rick’s face; he couldn’t let an opening like that go by unplundered. “You were pretty keen on-- on getting them off last night,” he leered, pleased when her hands stuttered for the briefest moment and a redness climbed up the back of her neck.

“Y-yeah, well,” she said when she’d recovered, a tiny little stutter in her voice as well, “a warm body is a warm body.”

Rick let out a belch and started digging for his flask again. “Still sticking with warm-blooded life forms, huh,” he said dismissively. “Cute.”

Another minute passed, then something inside the door made a whirring noise, followed by a  _ click _ , and the steel wall swung open. Rick was running through as soon as his body would fit, having already memorized the most direct route to his destination. “Hey!” Amerie snapped behind him. “Wait up!”

“Keep up!” he spat back. A half an hour had already passed since someone had reported his Summer and Morty in line to see the Council, and he didn’t think that collection of dick bags would spend a long time deliberating their fates. In truth, the very bureaucracy he hated was what was buying them time.

Amerie huffed and panted behind him as they covered the distance between the Horror and the Citadel center where the control units were housed. He paused momentarily before beginning the eight-story climb to the level with the navigation controls, and Amerie used the respite to hunch forward, shoulders heaving as she coughed and gasped. Rick frowned; they’d done worse on the prisons runs without her sounding like an overweight Pripudlian… but she hadn’t been drinking in those situations. “H-h-how drunk are you?” he asked, echoing her all-too-frequent question.

“Too drunk for this shit,” she wheezed, then gagged a little and spit out a mouthful of bile.

Rick rolled his eyes and fished around in his coat until he found the vial he wanted. He shoved it in Amerie’s face. “Alcohol metabolizing enzyme,” he said before she could ask. “Just drink it.”

Rick double checked the Citadel schematics on one of his watches as they waited for the enzyme to do its thing. It usually took about four minutes for Rick to go from riggity wrekt to functionally-wasted, so he wasn’t surprised when Amerie seemed to have herself under control in 90 seconds flat. “Wow,” she said, seeming genuinely impressed for the first time. “That stuff’s pretty good.”

“S-so glad you approve,” Rick drawled. “Now let’s move.”

They were both breathing hard when they climbed out of the ladder well hundreds of feet above where they had started. Rick took a hit from his flask and offered it to Amerie, who blanched and shook her head. 

“Alright,” he said, “now we-- now we’re gonna get in the vents. Don’t get stuck.”

Amerie nodded, checking her phone. “Summer and Morty just got taken into the audience chamber,” she said, concern crossing her face.

“S’all good,” he said, grinning with a hint of pride creeping up his chest. “Those two little shit stains’ll be a pain in the Council’s ass, just like-- just like their grandpa taught ‘em.”

 

*****

 

Amerie didn't know if she should be relieved or concerned when Rick didn't use her precarious position following him through the vents as an opportunity to fart in her face. Apart from the snide comment about her trying to get into his pants -- which, honestly, she'd walked right into -- he’d been taking this whole thing really seriously, like he actually cared what happened to his grandkids. In the back of her mind, she was already making plans to run a full assessment of the relationships between C dimension Ricks and Mortys. Two Ricks didn't constitute a trend, but it could be worth looking into.

Ahead of her, Rick stopped. After a moment, he twisted around and carefully mouthed, “ _ Dark. Bomb. _ ” Amerie nodded and scooted back to the nearest intersection of ducts so she could get her pack off and find the requested materials. She went ahead and put her own goggles on before scrambling back up to where Rick was and sliding another set of goggles and a couple metal spheres between his knees. When he looked back at her again, he fiddled with a dial on his eyeware, and a string of text marched across her vision: KNOCK OUT A RICK IN A FANCY UNIFORM. She nodded again.

Rick opened the vent.

Screaming erupted below.

Amerie watched Rick slide out and followed. All around Ricks and a few Mortys bumped into each other and into her. She spied an officer a few feet away, eyes opened wide as saucers and hands spread in front of him. He was barking orders but no one could hear him over the din. Grabbing her pistol from her belt, she flipped it around to bring the grip down sharply on his temple. He crumpled, another obstacle for the bewildered staff as they stumbled around in the dark. Amerie looked up for C-137 just in time to see him slam his fist on a button.

Her stomach lurched as she lost her balance…

Then she heard the terrifying sound of shredding metal. For a second it looked like the artificial gravity was going to go out, as she felt herself lifting up slowly until her toes were just barely brushing the floor, then they all slammed back down to the ground, Amerie stumbling a few steps before she was sure of her footing. She shook her head sharply, willing her inner ear to  _ calm the fuck down _ . Rick was shouldering the officer, tugging at the strap of her knapsack to get her attention. They maneuvered around the even-more panicked workers and out the exit. Rick led her into an alcove, sheltered from the view of the shock troops pouring through the halls. “What did you do?” she hissed, jerking the goggled down around her neck.

“Telep--EURRRGH--ted us into the Galactic Federation Central Station,” he said, calmly undoing the clasps on the officer’s uniform. “Help me-- help me strip this guy.”

Once Amerie was tugging off the guy’s pants, Rick started pulling off his own clothes to reveal a black tactical suit underneath, covered with gear. As he pulled on officer Rick’s uniform, he explained the plan. “I’m going into the Council Chamber dressed as one of them.” He yanked some of the medals off the chest of the shirt, tossing them aside. “I’ll take out as many as I can, but we’re bound to end up in a stand-off. My guess is one of the assholes will grab Summer then tell the rest to fight over Morty. I need you to come in after me and get a clear-- get a clear shot on whoever has Summer. Can you do that?”

“How do I get in?” she asked, taking the brown pants and blue shirt Rick handed her and cramming them into her already-stuffed pack.

“I-I can get a few seconds when nobody’ll have eyes on the door,” Rick said, wrapping officer Rick’s sash around his neck and using one of the medals to pin it in place. “I’m gonna seal the door right after that though, so you’ll have to move your ass.”

Amerie nodded, then cringed as she heard blood-curdling screams behind her. “S-sounds like the prisoners are loose,” Rick commented absently, running a comb through his hair until it form a weird poof around his skull.

Outside the Council Chamber, Amerie tucked herself into a shadowed corner as Rick ran in. “The Citadel’s been teleported into Federation Space!” he wailed. “It’s doomed! This has to be C-137, you guys. You know he’s coming for us.”

Amerie studied the sliver of the chamber she could see. A quick dash would take her behind a pile of rubble from the collapsing ceiling. It would be good enough. She heard someone say, “Rick Laser Scissors,” and hunkering low and placing her feet carefully, she dashed into the room and behind cover. Moments later, the door slammed shut and the shooting started. Amerie crawled along the floor until she could see the Council dais. It would give her substantial cover and significant mobility, so after a quick glance at the situation in the center of the room, she ran for it. As she slid behind it, she heard a final shot ring out. Summer and Morty were yelling, then C-137 started arguing with the last Rick standing. Amerie crept along, focusing on keeping her footfalls silent as she worked down to the other end of the dais and, hopefully, an easy shot at whatever asshole was left. “You’re trying to use Disney bucks at a Caesar’s Palace here,” C-137 was saying, following by more yelling from Morty, who was soon interrupted by C-137 raging at the kid. The other Rick joined in, then Summer too, and when Amerie tilted herself around the corner to line up her shot, she caught Morty’s look of complete defeat out of the corner of her eye just before she pulled the trigger.

Summer screeched as blood and brain matter splatter down her, but Rick ran to her and pulled her into a half-hug to calm her down. Amerie pounded toward them. “Wh-wh-wh-who the fuck is this!?” Morty asked, backing away from her while simultaneously raising a pistol Rick had apparently given him.

“This is Amerie,” Rick explained, shoving the pistol he was holding back into Summer’s hands and kicking another Rick aside to grab the rifle underneath him. “She’s your mom’s half-sister in some dimensions. She’s helping me.” 

“Oh,” Morty said. “Um, hi, I guess?”

“Mom has a sister?” Summer squealed.

“No, Summer,” Rick corrected, checking over his new weaponry, “other versions of your mom have sisters. Your mom is an only child.”

Amerie gave a little wave. “Hey.”

“Right, n-n-now that we’re done with this little family reunion,” Rick said, hoisting the rifle to the ready, “Amerie’ll pull drag. Kids, keep your heads down and stay between us.”

The Citadel was mass pandemonium as Ricks and Mortys fought the worst criminals the Federation had to offer. Rick was headed for a large hole that had been knocked into the Federation Station, and Amerie took a few shots at the life forms that took even the least interest in their group, keeping her own head low to avoid the wild sprays of laser fire. “Can’t we just portal home?” Summer whined.

“Not ‘til I finish what I started,” Rick snapped back, climbing up the debris in a series of leaps and leading them into a dark corridor with a whoop of victory. “And that’s how you get level 9 access without a password.”

Amerie stifled a sudden giggle. Rick apparently got chatty when he had an audience he wanted to impress.

Rick slid to a halt in a wide room, blowing a hole in a Gromflomite’s chest. “Employee of the Month, ladies and gentlemen.” As he and the kids focused on the bank of computers that dominated most of the room, Amerie positioned herself where she could watch in both directions for more Gromflomites. “So what are you doing with with level 9 access anyways?” Morty asked behind her.

“Destroying the-- EUURRRP-- Galactic government,” Rick announced.

The kids were immediately excited. “Are you gonna set all their nukes to target each other?” Summer asked.

“Oooh! Or-- or reprogram their military portals to disintegrate their entire space fleet?” Morty suggested.

Amerie spotted movement down the hallway, carefully lined up a shot before firing twice and dropping the guard that had been running around, waving his arms.

“Good pitches, kids,” Rick was saying, sounding more indulgent than she would have imagined. “I’m almost proud. But watch closely as Grandpa topples an empire by changing a one to a zero.”

Amerie’s mouth quirked. Voiding the value of the blemflark was maybe not the most permanent solution, but it would create some serious problems for the Gromflomites for a while. In the meantime, resistance forces around the universe would have time to reestablish local governments on thousands on planets. 

And since Earth’s only value was as a tourist sight, it would be abandoned almost immediately.

“Okay, Rick,” she said, “now what?”

“Now,” he said, “you give me my damn clothes and we get the fuck out of here.” She felt him pulling her pack open and held a hand out for his rifle, which he readily relinquished.

“So,” Summer said, “did you, like, totally turn yourself in so you could, like, take this place down from the inside?”

“That  _ was _ the plan,” Rick said, and Amerie glanced over her shoulder to see if he looked angry. He didn’t. “Then an even bigger pile of turds hit the fan. Amerie here busted me out so we could-- cause she need me to stop a multidimensional invasion first.” Once again dressed in his brown pants and lab coat, Rick dug around for his portal gun and, with a quick adjustment of the settings, fired at a nearby wall. Morty and Summer waltzed on through, but Amerie stayed where she was, suddenly not sure if she should just waltz on through herself. It wasn’t like she belonged there. She’d never belonged there. Maybe it’d be better if she went back down to the Citadel, tried to find what was left of Amerieville. Given the amount of damage Rick had managed to cause to the place, the other Ameries would probably never realize that she’d exploited the zero-day, taking away one of their few tools against the Council. Hell, there wasn’t a Council anymore anyway…

“You coming or what?” Rick’s harsh question broke through her train of thought. He was waiting just outside the portal, looking back at her, face set in the kind of disinterest that meant he didn’t really mind if she came along or care if she didn’t.

“Yeah,” she said, “okay.”

On the other side of the portal, that disinterest was gone entirely. “Guess who dismantled the government!” Rick crowed.

“Please don’t leave me again!” a Beth said, diving into Rick’s chest for a hug.

“I never will, baby,” Rick assured her, wrapping arms around her back.

“I was right!” Summer exclaimed. “He turned himself in on purpose! It was all part of his plan!”

Amerie looked around the room. Couch. TV. Carpet. All familiar. All slightly off-color. Jerry with a dumb look on his face. Morty, excited to be alive still. Beth…

A Beth who looked at her without any recognition…

Suddenly, she felt like she was going to explode, spewing acid and salt water everywhere. She ran in the direction of the garage.

 

*****

 

“Who was that?” Beth asked, still clinging to his chest.

“That was Amerie,” Summer said, crossing her arms over her chest in smug satisfaction. “She’s your half-sister from another dimension.”

“Y-y-yeah,” Morty added, “and she saved Summer’s life.”

Rick rolled his eyes. “Your sister was never in a-any danger, Morty.”

“H-h-h-he had a gun to her head!” Morty said, pointing at the head in question.

“Half-sister?” Beth asked, looking up at him, clearly skeptical.

Rick grimaced slightly, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Y-yeah, sweetie. In some timelines, your mom remarried and had another kid. Amerie.”

“Oh,” Beth said, looking in the direction Amerie had run. “Is she alright?”

He shrugged. “Probably seeing you all is-- she’s had a rough few weeks.” He looked over at his idiot son-in-law, who was still standing there with his mouth open. “Jerry, is there any light beer left? It’s insane what you miss in prison.”

Jerry’s mouth slammed shut, like his synapses had finally managed to get a little kindle burning. “Um...  okay, no,” he said. “No, no, no.”

“No, you’re right,” Rick admitted, wondering what he had been thinking. “Where’s the vodka?”

“Beth,” Jerry announced, “it’s me or him.”

Beth twisted out of Rick’s arms to stare at her husband. A long, uncomfortable silence stretched out… then was suddenly broken by the sound of pounding in the garage. Morty and Summer both started easing out of the room at the same time. Rick followed their lead. “Seems like you guys need some privacy,” he said backing away. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go see what Amerie’s doing to the garage.”

What Amerie was doing was kicking the washing machine up and down its front, apparently assuming that the hatch to his basement lab would open she hit it just right. “Jesus,” Rick growled at her, reaching around to push down the start button and twist the knob to “Second Rinse” at the same time. The hatch popped up and Amerie brushed past him to climb down the ladder, slamming it shut behind her. Rick ground his teeth together, already regretting that he’d let her come along. Sure he wanted to know what kind of intel she had on him, but killing her and grabbing her computer would have been the easiest thing to do. He didn’t know what had come over him, but something about the way she looked, standing there watching them all walk away, it reminded him a little of…

He pushed the thought aside and surveyed the mess that had been made of his garage. His dead flies were all out of whack. “What the fuck!” he spat. “Not cool, Jerry! A man’s garage is his castle.” Fortunately, once the flies were back in place, everything else seemed to be in order, including the bottle of Traflorkian tequila he’d stashed away for some emergency and/or special occasion. He was about to pop the top when Beth wandered in. “Jerry’s going to…” she started, “spend some time… divorced.”

_ Cha-ching _ .

He schooled his features into something close to concern before he turned around. “Oh aw, I’m sorry to hear that, sweetie,” he said. “I hope I had nothing to do with that.”

“Oh God, Dad!” she said, just like Rick knew she would. “That is not your burden to bear. I feel terrible that I misjudged you.” She smiled, and when Rick smiled back, it was only partially fake. “This is gonna be good for Jerry.”

_ If I thought it would be good for that asshole, I wouldn’t have let it happen _ . 

“For everybody,” he said.

“For everybody,” she agreed.

A ghastly wail sounded below their feet. Beth frowned. “Dad, I thought we talked about alien prisoners in the basement,” she said, looking disappointed.

Rick rolled his eyes. “I-i-i-it’s just Amerie coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t able to save her family and they’re a-- EURRP-- all dead.”

“Oh,” Beth said, taken aback. The choked cry broke off, then started again with renewed intensity. Beth frowned in an entirely different way, an almost-concerned way. “Aren’t you going to…”

“O-o-oh, sure,” Rick said, kicking the hatch open and yelling, “Hey! Keep it down!”

“FUCK! YOU!” Amerie screamed. The sobbing continued, so Rick shrugged his shoulders and closed the door. “I-- I could put her in one of the barometric chambers, i-i-if you want. That’d cut down on the noise some.”

“Dad!” Beth exclaimed.

“Y-you’re right,” he admitted, “the trauma’s just as likely to get her all-- to make her scream even more. Probably better to just let her, you know, let her cry herself out.”

“I meant, aren’t you going to, like, I don’t know, comfort her?” Beth said, gesturing to the floor.

“Egh,” Rick said with a grimace.

“Aren’t you, like, friends or something?”

“We teamed up,” Rick explained. “Now she’ll go her own way and I’ll go mine.” He turned back to the liquor bottle that was waiting for him.

“Well,” Beth said, hesitating a moment, “let her know she can stay here with us as long as she likes.”

“Not if she keeps this up,” Rick muttered darkly.

“O...kay,” Beth said as Morty stumbled in the door behind her. “Well, I better… tend to Jerry before he changes his mind and doesn’t move out.” She paused to ruffle Morty’s hair. “I will leave you two to your adventures.”

Rick grinned maniacally. With Jerry out of the way, the adventures could only get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up! Morty is awkward! Amerie is angsty! Rick tries to introduce terrible drinking games to a new generation!


	8. Defraculators and Other Broken Things

Morty took his time coming down the ladder, wanting to make as much noise as possible so Amerie would know he was there. No one had seen the woman except Rick in the two days since they’d taken down the Federation. At least, everyone assumed Rick had been down to see her. Whenever one of them asked, Rick had shrugged his shoulders and said something along the lines of how they shouldn’t get attached because Amerie would be leaving soon.

But now they were going to sit down for dinner  _ as a family  _ for the first time since his mom had kicked his dad out of the house, and Morty was equal parts concerned about Amerie and desperate for something to distract from the awkwardness of this new absence.

The lab was dim, with most of the light coming from various glowing liquids and buttons. Morty paused for a second once he feet were on the floor for his eyes to adjust, wondering for a moment if Amerie had already left. Then he recognized the pile of stuff in the corner for what it was: a small camping cot with a lump of blankets, Amerie’s head peeking out from under them, facing the wall. “H-h-hey, Amerie,” he said softly, taking a few hesitant steps toward her. She shifted slightly, head turning just enough to see him in the corner of her eye, then settled back into her nest. Morty rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing a little. “Mom’s-- Mom’s making dinner?” he said. “W-w-w-we were wondering if maybe you’d-- maybe you’d l-like to join us?”

Silence. She didn’t even move. Morty stood there, feeling like his arms were too long and chewing on his lip. Eventually he leaned over against the wall, facing a shelf full of growth tanks in various sizes instead of her. “R-r-rick told us about your family,” he started, then swallowed. “That they-- that they died? A-a-a-and I guess I just wanted to say th-that I-I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened.” Maybe his original Summer was in another dimension, regularly fighting for her life against Cronenbergs, but at least he knew she was alive. And at least he’d been able to fold himself into this replacement family.

He waited there in the dimness, the whirring and random beeps of Rick’s machinery sounding even louder in the silence that stretched out. Well, if Amerie didn’t want to talk, he couldn’t make her. Maybe she just needed some more time alone. He was about to climb back up the ladder when Amerie’s voice stopped him.

“Morty?” She sounded hoarse, like she had a sore throat. After some of the noises he’d heard, Morty wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

“Y-yeah?” he answered, pleased that he finally got some response.

“Can I take a shower?”

“O-o-o-of course!” Morty felt himself beaming. “J-just come upstairs, and I’ll find you a towel and everything. D-d-do you have extra clothes? If not, I can see if Summer or Mom have something that might fit.” He was bouncing a little on his toes as he waited for her to extract herself from her covers. He couldn’t see her face well, but the slump of her shoulders was obvious, and Morty tried to tamp down his excitement. He crawled up the ladder with ease, then waited again while Amerie shuffled up more slowly before leading her out of the garage and up the stairs. Digging in a hallway closet he pulled out his favorite towel -- a big, extra fluffy yellow one -- and passed it to her, noticing that she’d brought her backpack. “S-so you’ve got clothes?” he asked nervously. Her eyes were red, her hair was sticking up in the back, and she smelled like stale sweat and alcohol. Morty tried a grin. “D-d-d-do you need anything else?”

“No,” Amerie muttered, shutting the bathroom door behind her. Seconds later, Morty heard the shower start. He shuffled his feet, wondering what to do now, afraid that as soon as he walked away she’d actually think of something she needed. So he slumped down the wall next to the door with his knees pulled up and waited, picking at a hangnail and trying not to pay  _ too _ much attention to the different sounds of water splashing in the shower as Amerie cleaned herself up.

“MORTY!” Rick’s voice echoed up the staircase. “Morty, your-- your mom says to come to dinner!”

“I-i-in a minute, Rick,” Morty called back, then cringed when he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. 

“Wh-what’re you doing up here, Morty?” Rick asked as soon as he head appeared at the top of the stairs, eyes narrowed.

“A-A-A-Amerie’s in the bathroom,” Morty explained, pulling his knees up even closer to his chest. “I wanna m-m-make sure she doesn’t n-need anything.”

“Right,” Rick said with a roll of his eyes. He stomped the rest of the way into the hallway. “Ya little perv.” He wrapped his knuckles sharply on the door. “Hey Amerie. You dead in there?”

“Only inside,” Amerie’s muffled voice called back. 

“See,” Rick said, reaching down to grab Morty’s arm and pulling him up. “She’s fine.”

“Y-y-y-ya know, Rick,” Morty snapped, jerking out of Rick’s grasp even as he obediently trailed down the stairs, “I don’t-- I don’t appreciate you interpreting my concern for another p-person as some w-w-weird sex thing. I may be a teenager, b-but I don’t-- I’m not always thinking with my dick.”

“Of course, Morty,” Rick drawled sarcastically. “Sitting outside the door while a young woman showers is a c-c-completely normal, compassionate thing to do.”

Morty’s head drooped. There was no winning with Rick.

He picked idly at his peas and carrots as his mom tried to make conversation. “So kids,” she said, “how was school today?”

Summer huffed a sigh. “They’re making us clean up the debris from the Exodus.” Morty rolled his eyes; that’s what they’d started calling the Federation suddenly leaving Earth, along with all the alien tourists. The  _ Exodus _ . Like it was an occurrence of Biblical proportions instead the work of a handful of humans. “It’s basically forced labor,” his sister went on. “Like, I go to school to hang out with my friends, not move rubble all day while Mrs. Hammersmith yells at me.”

“That’s poor management,” Rick pointed out. “Y-y-you get much more efficient rubble shifting if you-- if you offer some kind of bullshit prize for most weight moved. That’s, like, scientifically proven.”

“H-hey Rick,” Morty piped up suddenly, planting his fork in his piece of chicken, “y-y-you couldn’t, like, come to school tomorrow, could you? Maybe bring some invention to, ya know, rebuild the school?”

“A-a-a-and cheat you out of this chance to build character?” Rick scoffed, then moaned as he stuffed mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Beth, sweetie,” he said, “you are a fucking magician.”

“S-s-seriously?!” Morty glared at his grandfather. “Y-you’re just gonna not do anything?”

“He probably figures this will just make you hate school more.” Amerie plodded into the room, hair damp and sticking out wildly, but looking a little more human. She dropped into the empty chair -- his dad’s chair, he realized -- and looked at Rick. “And the more you hate it, the easier it is to convince you to skip.”

Morty watched in awe as Rick glared back at Amerie without saying anything. She arched an eyebrow, then turned her attention to the plate of food before her. “Thank you for dinner,” she said politely, picking up her silverware and laying her napkin in her lap.

“You’re… welcome,” Beth said slowly, and Morty could see her trying to figure out if Rick was about to storm off in one of his week-long absences. But Rick just shrugged lightly and went back to eating. 

The Smith family let out a collective sigh of relief. Morty started to actually eat instead of just moving food around.

“So Amerie,” his mom started -- why did she keep trying to make this a normal meal instead of letting them all just be weird about? -- “you and Dad have been working together?”

Morty cut his eyes to Amerie, wanting to catch the answer without looking overly interested. She chewed carefully and swallowed before she spoke. “I broke him out of prison two weeks ago because I needed someone to help me release other incarcerated Ricks before one of them gave information to the Feds.”

Rick snorted. “I would have had myself out by now i-i-if you hadn’t interfered.”

Amerie shrugged. “Probably.”

“W-w-wait,” Morty piped up, turning Amerie’s explanation over in his head, “a Rick was going to actually give information to the Federation?” He could feel how wide his eyes were, but he didn’t care. He knew how Ricks felt about government. “B-but how would you even know?”

Amerie halted with a forkful of veggies halfway to her mouth, then set it down with a longsuffering groan just barely audible. “My home dimension runs 35 days in the future because the time police screwed it up,” she said quickly. “Gromflomites from another dimension invaded mine, meaning that somewhere a Rick turned over his portal tech. I tried to retroactively fix it. We did, but we didn’t do it in time to stop the invasion from happening in G-xx1.”

“So that’s why your family is dead,” Summer said, then slapped her hand over her mouth, looking around in shame. Morty looked to Rick, who was preoccupied with spearing wayward peas, then back to Amerie, who had a small crooked smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said, “but I’d prefer not to talk about it, you know, ever.” She went back to calmly eating, paying no attention to the rest of the family until everyone else was shuffling utensils around as well. His mom didn’t try to force any more conversation.

 

*****

 

As soon as he’d finished shoveling mashed potatoes into his face, Rick left the table. “H-hurry it up there, Morty,” he said as he stalked away. “We’ve got shit to do.”

He heard a stuttered reply behind him that he didn’t bother trying to understand as he shut the door to the garage behind him. He needed to put the finishing touches on a set of radon-seeking missiles that would make a pretty flurbo now that the collapse of the Federation meant the Verrinesians could continue their long-standing rivalry against the radon-based Herasclus of Paglanes-4. He was just double-checking some of the calibrations when sad-sack Amerie came in and made a bee-line for the hatch. Rick scowled. “So, Beth may have said that you can stay here,” he started, not looking up from the read-out on the weapons system, “b-b-but if you’re gonna keep being such a fucking downer, you need to get the fuck out.”

“Y’all were the ones who went straight into dead family territory,” Amerie said dully. “I just wanted to eat some damn peas.” 

Rick rolled his eyes and spun around to face her. “Y-y-you got two options here,” he spat, “a-and take it from someone who knows. You either get back to work, or you just fucking kill yourself. Alright? Pick one.”

“Work?” Amerie said, her eyebrows shooting up. “My ‘work’ is a joke! None of it fucking matters! I can’t do jack-shit in a universe as shitty as this, and we both know it’s the same way across the entire fucking multiverse!”

Rick watched her shoulders tremble with an odd sense of deja vu, remembering a younger version of himself, brown hair already streaked with gray, screaming something similar at Birdperson when the reports filtered in about the massacre on Torantellia. Birdperson had stared at him with his always-even gaze, placing his hands on Rick’s shoulders, and said, “It is true that many of our efforts have yielded no tangible results. Perhaps we will be better off if we abandon the notion that we can do anything to turn the tide of imperialism.” That was Birdperson for ya, always going on about the problems of imperialism and the constraints it placed on the indigenous peoples of the planets the Federation “inducted.” “My people have a saying,” he went on. “‘Gubba nubnub dooraka.’ It means, ‘Whatever let’s you sleep at night.’ We do this so we can sleep at night, knowing that we’ve done what we can.”

They’d stopped touring as the Flesh Curtains shortly after that, deciding collectively that their propaganda campaign had done all it could. Rick had thrown himself in weapons development full time. In the end, it hadn’t mattered, but at least he’d learned that the work was always there, even if it didn’t let you sleep at night.

He didn’t know how old Amerie was, but he guessed she was younger than he’d been then. “Listen,” he said, eyes falling as his shoulders slumped, “the work is whatever makes you feel better. M-maybe it doesn’t make the universe less shitty. Maybe you can only hope that one day, something will be better. Maybe it helps you kill the pain for a few hours.” He looked up at her, sighing. “You do whatever you have to do to sleep at night.”

She blinked a few times, like she was surprised, then said slowly, “Okay. Get back to work or kill myself.”

Rick snorted, suddenly annoyed with her easy acquiescence. “Now get back down in your pity hole and make up your fucking mind,” he snarled, then dug around in the cabinet under his work table. “A-a-and don’t drink any of my expensive shit downstairs,” he went on, shoving a bottle of cheap gin into her chest until she took it from him. “You wanna get shit-faced? You drink what I don’t want.”

The hatch was just closing when Morty came in, looking around expectantly. “I-i-i-is Amerie coming with us?” he asked as Rick handed him an armload of missiles and pointed him toward the ship. 

“C’mon, Morty,” Rick scolded. “I-isn’t developing a weird crush on y-y-your aunt kinda cliche?” 

“A-a-alright, Rick!” Morty snapped at him, dropping the missiles unceremoniously into the trunk. “That’s-- th-that’s enough of this shit.”

“Relax, Morty.” Rick climbed into the driver’s seat and took a minute to appreciate the the cushion conformed perfectly to his ass cheeks. “I-I’m just messing with ya. Now let’s go get us some flurbos!”

It was nearly morning by the time they got back. After several successful sales, Morty had asked if they could go play Roy, for old time’s sake, and RIck couldn’t say no. He hated to admit it, but he’d actually missed the little shit. The kid shuffled off to school looking like a zombie, but Rick didn’t feel bad; looking like he might drop dead any second would probably get Morty a break from rubble-moving duty.

Rick scrambled down the ladder to the basement with the rest of the flurbos in hand, intending to deposit what was left of the currency in his safe. He was momentarily taken aback to see Amerie sitting at a workbench instead of hiding in her nest or laid out in the floor with a hole through her head. “Hey,” she said calmly when she heard him. “I fixed your defraculator.”

Rick dropped the bag of money on a nearby tank, balling his hands into fists. “Y-y-you can’t just stroll in and mess with a guy’s shit!” he spat. “I had plans for that defraculator!”

“I know,” she went on, turning to face him and gesturing over to another counter where the device in question set. “I saw your schematics. I didn’t know if you’d decided to go with the solar disruptor array or the Gshelt wave detector, so I made a modular hook-up for the appropriate hardware for either.” She looked at him and for once, Rick didn’t immediately see smug arrogance. Instead, it was something closer to the small satisfaction he felt when he pieced together a particularly clever bit of circuitry and really wished there was someone around who could admire it with him. “You seem to favor zigzag couplings,” she finished, “so that’s what I used.” 

Rick was still frowning deeply as he inspected the defraculator. In fact, he hadn’t decided between the rough plans he’d made, but now he didn’t have to; Amerie’s modular hook-up would be easy enough to work with. “Y-you know, when I bought this,” he said, refusing to comment on the quality of the work, “the guy at the pawn shop tried to tell me it was a multiphase quantum resonator, a-a-and then Morty wanted to buy a sex robot.”

Amerie groaned. “Your Morty got it pregnant too?”

“Yeah,” Rick snorted. “It was a huge pain in my ass. And then Summer wouldn’t wear her burqa… wait, did your Rick go to Gazorpazorp alone?”

“Nope, I got wrangled into that one.” Amerie slumped back against the table she was sitting at. “What a nightmare! The female Gazorpazorpians are basically what it looks like if you stick a bunch of men in a room together and ask them what an all-female society would look like. All they can come up with is dumb shit like ‘Uh, women don’t like spiders’ or ‘Der, women hate bad bangs.’ It’s like Cosmo Feminism: The Culture.”

Rick leaned against a bench and fished out his flask as Amerie took a quick drink from the bottle of gin he’d given her earlier -- which was less than half gone, he noticed. “S--EURGH--mmer gave them some stupid speech about how gay men make better clothes and they couldn’t kill us because then it was like reverse patriarchy or something.”

Amerie barked a laugh. “The fact that worked is even more proof that Gazorpazorpian feminism is bullshit. We just shot a lot of people and stole a ship.”

“So much easier that way.”

 

*****

 

Amerie started coming to family dinner every night.

It was weird. She’d never done this with her family, except for holidays, because Rick G-xx1 hated her guts, and it was easier to keep the peace if she just wasn’t really around all that much. Now, she sat down every night with Beth and Morty and Summer and sometimes Rick and listened to the strained conversation that happened between teens and their parents the universe over. During the days, she explored the empty house, watched TV, sometimes drank, sometimes worked on whatever broken things she found in Rick’s garage. Sometimes Rick watched TV with her -- she was relieved when he told her this dimension did have  _ Ball Fondlers _ , but the helicopter pilot in this version was some weird little guy instead of a rainbow-striped kitten, which was a little disappointing. A couple of time he even tossed bits of machinery on to work bench that was apparently becoming hers with some muttered comment about how she needed to pull her own weight.

She didn't exactly make overtures of friendship. The people in this family were just -- they were her family, but off. One time, forgetting herself, she made a well-worn inside joke to Beth about slimy kissers, only to have the other woman look at her like she was crazy. She found herself cringing away from Morty sometimes because the kid was so starved for validation it hurt; it wasn't like her Morty hadn't had his insecurities and anxieties, but he’d never been this needy. And Summer was a whole new minefield.

But Amerie got sucked in one slippery little tendril at a time. Morty asking if she could help him with his English homework before Rick dragged him out for another adventure (the kid was entirely unphased by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”). Summer wanting her opinion on how slutty an outfit looked (Amerie gave layering suggestions for toning down the sluttiness depending on the context). By the time she walked in on Beth crying as she boxed up some of Jerry’s stuff, Amerie was pretty unsurprised when she ended up taking her out to a bar and watching her get very drunk while talking about what a disaster her life had become. Amerie nodded and made vaguely sympathetic noises, drove her home and put her to bed. Afterward, she’d flopped down in the arm chair to watch  _ Ball Fondlers: Origins _ with the rest of the family. “Is Mom okay?” Summer asked, not looking away from the screen.

“Relatively speaking,” Amerie said. 

At the next commercial break, Rick got up and walked into the kitchen. When she heard the fridge door open, Amerie called, “Hey, bring me a beer.”

“G-get your own fucking beer.” 

“I kept your daughter from dying in a drunk driving accident tonight.”

When Rick returned, he had a wicked gleam in his eye. “Y-y-you kids ever heard of ‘Beer Hunter’?” 

“No,” Morty and Summer said at the exact same time in the exact same tone of annoyance.

“C’mon, Rick,” Amerie said, knowing exactly what Beer Hunter entailed. “We both know that you’ll shake up both of them, then just go get a new one for yourself. Can we just skip that crap and go straight to drinking?”

“Geez, such a buzzkill.” But he did give her the beer, unshaken.

After  _ Ball Fondlers _ was over, Rick started flipping through channels at his ADD speed. The kids wandered off. Rick got up again and handed her another cold one when he came back. Amerie’s mind drifted as the colors and lights flickered and shifted. She’d been trying to decide what she wanted to do now. Going back to G-xx1 wasn’t really an option. There was nothing for her there. Living on the Citadel? Even if the Ameries didn’t find out it was her who exploited the zero-day without permission, she didn’t want to live in wreckage and hire herself out to random Ricks. She supposed she could travel, but she’d tried the nomadic lifestyle in her early twenties and discovered it did not suit her at all; having no home base ramped up her existential anxiety and sense of purposelessness. At least where she was, she’d never have to explain her dumb backstory again.

“Rick,” she said suddenly, “what if I decided I wanted to stay here?”

“What? In this dimension?” he said absently, switching channels again. “I’m not gonna stop you.”

“No, like,  _ here _ ,” she pressed. “In this house. In your basement.”

Rick’s hand stilled on the remote, and he looked over at her with lidded eyes. “You want to stay in my house.” It wasn’t a question.

Amerie shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else I’m supposed to be. I can help out with all this divorce bullshit. My Beth did it last year--”

“Your Beth was still with Jerry,” Rick interrupted, gaze shifting from skeptical to alert.

“Yeah, well, these divorces don’t always stick.”

Rick went pensive, thumb tapping against the remote without actually hitting any buttons as a movie featuring talking plants with googly eyes played in the background. Eventually, he said, “Fine, you can stay here, on a couple of conditions.”

Amerie wasn’t sure if the feeling in her stomach was relief or trepidation. “Okay?”

Rick held up a finger. “First of all, you keep me and my family out of your stupid database,” he said, a little spittle flecking his chin at the force of his words. “You start spying on us, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough.” It was fair enough. Amerie wasn’t interested in shitting where she ate.

“Secondly,” Rick went on, “I want to see everything you have on me.”

Amerie chewed her bottom lip, considering. She didn’t actually have that much on C-137; she’d never been able to get anyone near him into the network. “Alright,” she said.

Rick grinned, and for a second, Amerie was a little concerned she was walking into a trap. “Third, I want you to help me make this divorce stick. I-I-I wanna know everything you can find out about how Beths got rid of Jerrys for good.”

Amerie rolled her eyes and made a disgruntled noise in her throat. “C’mon, Rick,” she said, “we both know that it’s not really possible to replicate circumstances across dimensions and get identical outcomes. There are too many variables--”

“I-I-I don’t need some kid lecturing me about transdimensional variation theory,” Rick snorted. “You remember that I-- that I fucking invented transdimensional travel in the first place, right?”

Amerie crossed her arms over her chest. “I just don’t want to be held responsible if Beth takes Jerry back.”

“Fine,” spat Rick. “I won’t blame you if it doesn’t work, but I want that intel.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll do a report,” she agreed, still feeling pretty sure she’d end up catching the blame if things didn’t go Rick’s way. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Rick said, turning his attention back to the TV like they hadn’t even started a conversation about how to break up his daughter’s marriage permanently. “Breathe a word of any of this to Beth, and I’ll make the Strawberry Smiggles ad look like amateur hour.”

Amerie wanted to laugh at the threat. It was so unnecessary, so completely over the top. Instead, she slumped deeper into the armchair, taking several swallows of beer before saying, “Fuck with my stuff in the basement, and I’ll adopt eight cats and make sure that Morty gets deeply and personally attached to  _ every single one _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: Post-apocalyptic wastelands! Serious soul-searching! Date-rape drugs!


	9. Imperator Amerieosa Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rickmancing the Stone, broh!

Everything would have been fine if he’d had time to properly calibrate the emotional algorithms in the bots, but really, after the first attempt at dinner had driven Beth to the kitchen crying about how she needed to call Jerry, Rick had realized that he maybe didn’t know exactly what kinds of settings he needed without Amerie’s report. So as soon as he was sure Beth was not drunk-dialing her idiot soon-to-be ex-husband, Rick stormed out to the garage and dug through the box labeled “Sensors ‘n’ Shit” until he found the device that tracked the chips he planted in all his family members and set it to locate Amerie.

The results came back fast enough, since she was still on Earth. Rick zoomed in on the blinking dot. “Madrid?” he said, unscrewing the top from his flask. “Why the fuck is she in Madrid?”

He portaled to Bario de las Letras, holding his phone up and turning in a big circle until he was facing the right direction. The tracker led him to an enormous nightclub, and for a moment Rick studied it as he sipped from his flask. The place looked vaguely familiar; the Flesh Curtains had played Madrid a couple times and Rick couldn’t be bothered to remember all the Earth clubs he’d been banned from since reentry didn’t result in decapitation like it did on Zorboq Prime or most of the Parsfurt Quadrant. He took a look at the line to the door and snorted, shooting a portal inside.

The music was annoying as hell, and he headed straight for the bar. If he was going to find Amerie in this mess, he was going to have to numb himself a little first. If the bartender was worried about the way he threw back his first double vodka and asked for another, he didn’t show it. Now appropriately armed, Rick checked the tracker again, which showed that Amerie was several floors above him. He found another dance floor with an entirely different, slightly less annoying kind of music playing, and in the center of that dance floor, Amerie was gyrating and grinding against a young man with dark skin and lanky limbs. Rick smirked; she must have portaled in as well, because there was no way those raggedy-ass hi-top sneakers would have passed the bouncer’s discerning eye.  _ No reason to ruin her fun yet _ , he thought. She hadn’t pissed him off enough to warrant him cock-blocking her, and maybe getting laid would make her less emo.

So he found a table and ordered another drink and watched all the young people pawing at each other like sex with their own species was the height of existence. Eventually, Amerie’s partner left her in the direction of the bar while she continued dancing by herself, swaying her hips and throwing her head back in complete abandon. Rick wondered idly how much alcohol it took for her to relax like this and momentarily regretted he hadn’t yet had a chance to implant her with the biometric sensors that Mory and Summer were equipped with. He’d have to make it a priority now that he kind of needed her. Couldn’t have her inadvertently dying before he was Jerry was gone for good.

Tall, dark, and reasonably handsome came back with a drink in each hand, leaning down to whisper in Amerie’s ear as he pressed one into her hand. She looked at it, then back up at him, suddenly giggling and leaning against him. Rick grimaced. Giggling was definitely worse that existential despair in his book, but this guy seemed only too happy to loop an arm around her waist and lead her to a stool against the wall. He encouraged her to drink, tipping his own shot back at the same time, then he was back to whispering in her ear, hands running along her thighs and hips. At first, she seemed into it, but when he tried to pull her deeper into the dark hallways of the club, she resisted, smiling but tugging her arm back. He persisted, not losing his grip, white teeth flashing, like this was a game. She persisted in pulling away from him, but her smile was gone.

Rick sighed and stood. If she didn’t want to go home with this guy, it was time for her to go home with him and do some actual fucking work. He pushed his way through the crowd to where tall, dark, and asshole was trying not to make a scene… or at least make a different kind of scene. In the few seconds it had taken him to cross the floor, Amerie had gone from drunk and giggly to borderline unconscious, and the asshole was holding her steady as he maneuvered her toward a hallway, like he was going to take her to the restroom. Instantly suspicious, Rick quickened his steps, grabbing the guy’s shoulder and spinning him around. “Hey shitstain,” Rick roared to be heard, “hands off her.”

The guy babbled back in Spanish, simpatico little smile on his face. “It’s okay,” he said, “my girlfriend had a little too much to drink. I’m just going to--”

“Rick?” Amerie slurred in English, cutting the asshole off and reaching out a shaky hand to latch onto his lab coat. Her eyes were unfocused and her fingers were fumbling, struggling to close around the fabric. “Waaaannaaa… go… hooooome.”

The guy was clearly confused. “You know him?” he asked, refusing to relinquish his hold on her, even as she leaned farther away from him.

Rick answered by punching him in the balls. Hard.

He caught Amerie as the asshole slumped to the floor, smoothly retrieving his portal gun and shooting their way out. Amerie stumbled after him, tripping in the exit and hitting the concrete floor of the garage with a groan. Rick sighed and hauled her back to her feet. “C’mon,” he said, setting her in his chair and squatting down to examine her eyes. “You gotta stay awake.” He gave her cheek a little slap when her eyelids started drooping. “D-did that last drink taste funny?”

She looked at him blankly, head tilted slightly to the side like she was listening for something, body listing slightly in an attempt to maintain equilibrium. He was about to give up on getting anything out of her when she suddenly leaned forward to press her lips to the corner of his mouth in a soft kiss.

“J-j-jesus!” he sputtered, simultaneously pulling back and trying to stop her from tipping over. One hand scrambled in the cabinets for the tox screen device, pulling it out and pricking her finger before she could do anything more than blink slowly. He looked at the readout, eyebrows shooting up.  _ Holy hell _ , had she been roofied. Asshole apparently didn’t know what he was doing; the levels of rohypnol in her bloodstream were enough to knock out a damn horse. Best thing was probably to get as much of it out of her as possible.

While he was deciding on the best course of action, Amerie started to slur behind him. “Sorry….sh-shit… ‘M so sorry…”

He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, digging into one of his pockets for a pack of tablets, one of which he pushed into Amerie’s mouth. “Just let that dissolve on your tongue.” He grabbed a nearby bucket and placed it at Amerie’s feet just in time for her to spew a pretty epic amount of booze and bile into it. While she retched, Rick leaned back against the workbench, rubbing a thumb across the spot she had kissed, feeling annoyed that this was a thing she apparently did when she had too much to drink. He wondered idly if she’d been fucking her Rick before he died. Or maybe she wanted to? Well he wasn’t here to help her live out her fantasies. At least not unless she asked nicely.

Once she’d entirely emptied her stomach and sat up breathing heavily, Rick went into the kitchen to pull an unmarked bottle filled with purple liquid out of his vegetable drawer. “What happened?” Amerie croaked when he came back. She looked like the epitome of the morning after: fancy clothes disheveled, eyes bloodshot, lips cracked with a little line of drool shining on her chin.

“You got roofied,” Rick explained, handing her the bottle.

She looked at it. “Another alcohol metabolizing enzyme?”

“Pedialyte and club soda. Just sip on it.”

She did as she was told while Rick moved the bucket into the trash departiculator he’d built after the alien parasite incident. “Why’d you come looking for me?” she asked, throat raspy.

“What? No ‘thanks for saving me from getting raped’?” Rick sneered. “No ‘gee, I-I-I sure did learn a-a lesson about taking drinks from strangers in clubs?”

Amerie’s brows furrowed and her lips thinned into a tight line, but instead of snapping back at him, she said evenly, “Thank you for stopping a rapist. And I have learned a lesson about accepting drinks from strangers. It’s that my nanobots are more limited that I thought in terms of processing popular date rape drugs. I’ll have to see about making some adjustments.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed and he snatched up the tox screen readout again. “I thought the guy was just an idiot and gave you a huge dose on accident,” he said, showing her the numbers. “But he probably kept upping the amount when it didn’t seem to be working.”

Amerie studied the readout then sighed, taking another sip of the Pedialyte. “I guess I just need to have them alert me when they first detect something so I can shoot the bastard and just be done with it.”

Rick huffed. “A-a-and what were you doing out partying wh-when you’re supposed to be putting together that report for me?”

Amerie blinked wearily, taking another drink before she answered. “I’ve sent out intel requests. It’ll take at least a week to get them back. In the meantime…” She shrugged. “Is that why you came after me?”

Rick growled in frustration. “Summer and Morty are working through their adolescent angst in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but Beth is suddenly all concerned about their well-being and wants to know where they are.”

“Robot replacements?” Amerie suggested.

Rick kept his gaze firmly fixed on the floor as he said, “They made Beth want to call Jerry. I need  _ you _ to help me get the algorithms set right--”

“Or you could just go get your grandkids,” Amerie interrupted, “‘cause I can’t help you. Not until those intel requests come back.”

Rick ground his teeth as he considered his options. Getting another Morty normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but with the Citadel probably still burning, he didn’t think his coupon would be honored. Finding another Summer was even more complicated… “Fine,” he snapped, feeling vindictive that he’d gone through all the trouble and she’d been useless. “But you’re coming with me.”

“Why?” Amerie asked, all arched eyebrows.

“Y-y-you owe me one after tonight,” he replied, feeling the tiniest sliver of guilt that he was holding this over her head. He squashed it with the thought that this was faster than arguing.

Amerie glared knives at him before she stood and marched to the hatch. “Give me a minute to change,” she muttered.

 

*****   
  


Going through the portal into post-apocalypse land did not help with the cramping in her gut. Amerie actually thought she was going to lose what little she had left for a second, all too aware of Rick’s cool gaze on her as she belched wetly. After a moment, he said, “Morty’s apparently headed toward that castle.” Amerie looked in the direction he pointed, seeing what looked like a former fancy prep school tricked out with recently-added crenelations in the distance. He started walking without waiting for a response and Amerie trailed after him feeling grateful that at least the sun had set as she slurped down more of Rick’s concoction.

She realized that the most pressing thing on her mind should be the fact that some douchebag had just tried to rape her. She realized that she should probably feel horrified, violated, angry…

But the fact was that the person who needed to know she felt those things was dimensions away, hopefully nursing some painful injury, if Rick had done anything right.

Instead, she was more concerned about the man she trailed after now, because it was time to face facts: she was physically attracted to C-137. The first pass she’d made at him could have been written off as near-death horniness, but tonight she had no excuse. She had only the vaguest memories of what she had done, but she clearly remembered the strong desire to get closer to him. 

It was… annoying. It had taken her years to realize that her combination of high sex drive and infrequent instances of attraction actually had some logic to it; she just didn’t really find herself attracted to individuals until there was some kind of emotional engagement -- and that emotional engagement had led to some very frustrating crushes.

Like this one.

She supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised. The whole saving-the-multiverse thing had been pretty intense, and adrenaline only compounded feelings of attraction. And even though he was a total asshole, she found Rick C-137 easier to get along with than a lot of other people. He didn’t expect her to make meaningless conversation when they were in the same room and he already hated everything so she didn’t have to make attempts to be “nice.” She was so fucking tired of making an effort to be “nice” so she could continue to work and live with people who were threatened by intelligence in women and resorted to calling them bitchy.

Whole new dimension to not give any fucks in.

Still, even if she could understand  _ why _ she’d developed a crush on someone who should have been so far out of the running -- she groaned internally when she remembered fixing his defraculator and telling herself it  _ wasn’t _ an attempt to impress him -- Rick had been pretty clear that he wasn’t into it. Hopefully the whole thing would blow over soon and, until then, she’d just have to not get drunk.

By the time they reached the “castle” walls, they could hear a commotion on the battlements. “Th-that’ll be Morty making some kind of mess,” Rick sighed.

“Any idea who these people are?” she asked as Rick tipped a small vial of acid on the front door.

“Not friendly ones?” he said absentmindedly. When they were greeted by a courtyard stacked with cages, humans of all ages huddled inside, Rick clarified. “Okay, more like actively despicable.”

Amerie felt no qualms about blasting a hole through the first guard that came at them. There was no contest; the men and women that hurtled toward them only had melee weapons and they had lasers from a much better timeline, technologically speaking. After they’d downed around a dozen of the slavers, the tide pouring out of the castle stopped, and Amerie started searching for keys to the holding pens while Rick tapped his foot. “O-o-oh sure, we have no idea what that little idiot is doing up there,” he rambled, “but let’s take a moment for some looting.”

She ignored him, and finding a ring of heavy keys underneath a heavier corpse, she passed them off to a teenager who still looked relatively alive despite their captivity. She and Rick found a few more candidates for execution inside the building, then Amerie followed Rick up a set of rickety stairs and into a chamber with a very pasty man quivering in a bathtub and a very asymmetrical Morty talking to his arm.

“What is he--” Amerie started to ask when Morty wrapped his larger hand around the man’s throat, but Rick cut her off. “Don’t worry about it,” he said in a hushed tone. “J-j-just let him get his closure or whatever and then we’ll get out of here.” Before she got a chance to ask anything else, Rick was snooping through the drowning guy’s stuff, slipping a couple of bottles into his coat and inadvertently attracting Morty’s attention. “Rick?” the kid asked, looking up while his beefy arm continued strangling like nothing was happening.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rick said quickly, “I-I-I can wait for this to wrap up.” He continued rifling through the glassware. “Don’t let me distract you.”

“Yeah, well, too late,” Morty spat. He dunked his victim under the water a couple of times before holding him down. Amerie was starting to feel a little concerned about how blase Morty was acting about committing cold blooded murder, and in such an unnecessarity excessive way. “Tell me what you want,” he said, not even noticing her taking another step into the room.

“I want you and your sister to come home,” Rick answered simply.

Morty barked a laugh. “Oh but don’t-- don’t you have infinite versions of me and my sister?” 

Rick spun around, spittle flying a little. “You don’t have to kick me while I’m down, Morty!” Amerie was actually kind of impressed; Morty seemed to have Rick’s number. “Look,” Rick went on, “there’s no replacing either of you without an amount of work that would ultimately defeat the purpose.”  _ Not to mention he’s partial to the versions he’s got _ , Amerie added mentally. 

The man in the bathtub stopped his thrashing, and a rush of bubbles to the surface signalled his final breath. Immediately, Morty’s arm shrank back down to normal, leaving him with a gaping hole where his shirt sleeve used to be. The kid looked sad but content, and Rick and Amerie joined him to look down at the body. Morty’s eyes flicked up to hers, then back down as he said, “Maybe the lesson we’ve learned is that, whether it’s our parents’ marriage, a glowing green rock, or an awesome giant arm, sooner or later, you gotta let it go.”

Amerie had no idea what he was talking about, but if the kid felt like he’d learned something from all this, more power to him.

The solemn moment was broken by the sound of water sloshing in the tub again. “I don’t know if that applies to the throats of murder victims,” Rick said coolly as the pasty man jerked up to gasp a desperate breath. Amerie sprang back, soaked by his thrashing. 

“SHIT!” Morty wailed, cringing away. “W-w-w-what do I--”

Rick tilted his head to one side thoughtfully. “The longer you wait, Morty, the more it’s going to feel like committing a whole murder. I think your arm just called it too early because it wasn’t the arm of a paramedic. Here.” He grabbed Morty’s wrist and forced the kid’s hand back around the man’s throat. “It’s the least I can do. I-- uh-- I owe you this much.”

“What the fuck, Rick!” Amerie shoved Rick’s shoulder hard, pushing both the scientist and Morty away from the tub. Morty scrambled even further back before RIck could man-handled him into murder again. “Get Morty out of here,” she spat, grabbing the man’s head to keep him from getting anywhere. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” 

“W-what are you gonna do?” Rick asked, eyes narrowing.

“I’m gonna handle the situation in a way that doesn’t scar a teenager!” she snarled at him. For a second it looked like he was going to fight her on it, then he grabbed Morty’s arm again and tugged him toward the door. “C’mon, Morty,” he said. “Let’s let Amerie ‘handle’ this.” 

As soon as they were gone, she pulled out her pistol and put a laser bolt straight through the guy’s temples, letting him slump back into the water. He deserved it, living in luxury on top of this heap of human misery. But it wasn’t enough to just wipe out this band of slavers; another would pop up in its place. Amerie grimaced, chewed the inside of her lip as she worked out a plan. No guarantees that it’d do any good, but maybe she could at least get others to think twice before treating people as things. 

She dug into her knapsack -- a new one, since her last one was pretty much shot to shit -- and pulling out a small drilling laser, got to work carving a message onto the stone floor near the tub.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO SLAVERS. I’LL BE WATCHING. 

She signed it with an uncomplicated symbol for a gun sight, hoping the message was clear enough for some of the meatheads that had apparently survived whatever nuclear hell they’d unleashed on themselves here. Then she trotted down the stairs, shoving the drill into her back pocket and holstering the laser pistol. 

Rick and Morty were waiting in a vehicle, Morty looking subdued in the shotgun seat and Rick lounging angrily behind the wheel. “You done ‘handling’ it?” he snarked at her as she hopped into the narrow backseat. 

“Yes, Rick,” she said calmly.

“Good, because getting Summer is going to be an even bigger pain in the ass.”

They drove for a couple of hours; Amerie even dozed a bit with her shirt pulled up over her head to keep the dust out of her nose and mouth. She was woken by Morty shaking her leg. “Th-they’re coming,” he said urgently.

“Who?” she asked, blinking furiously and catching sight of the early morning sun glinting off metal in the distance. 

“The Deathstalkers,” Morty replied. “They’re who Summer joined up with. I think she’s, like, sleeping with their leader or whatever.”

“What?” Rick snapped beside him. “Y-y-you were just gonna sit on that, Morty? That’s important information!” He shook his head sharply. “You know what? Whatever. Amerie, you be ready to kill every last one of those sons of bitches if Summer won’t come quietly.”

Amerie’s exclamation of “Jesus Christ, Rick!” overlapped Morty’s moaned “Aww, Rick, is that-- is that really necessary?”

“Not if they’re reasonable about this,” Rick said as he pulled the car to a halt and grabbed the brown bag he’d been carrying from next to Amerie. Out of it, he pulled a large glowing green rock, which he held over his head as he got out of the car, Morty following suit. The line of pieced-together cars slowed to a stop before them. Amerie hopped out to take her place just behind Rick and Morty, where her hand on her pistol would probably be hidden.

Summer emerged from the lead car looking feral and alive, hair untrapped by its usual ponytail and wearing some kind of warrior princess outfit that accentuated the lean lines of her body.  _ Definitely a Sanchez _ , Amerie thought idly as she shifted her gaze to the other figure approaching them.

He was big, muscular, and wearing a bucket on his head.

Summer was in a relationship with a man who wore a bucket on his head and almost nothing else.

A few things were starting to fall into place.

“The reason I wanted this is because it can do this,” Rick was saying. He placed a light bulb against the rock --  _ Isotope 319?  _ she wondered.  _ Or was it 322?  _ \-- and bulb immediately began glowing. “This is a really special thing,” Rick went on. “I mean, you could use to power all your vehicles. You wouldn’t be reliant on gasoline. You’ll be the most advanced tribe of radioactive cannibals in the whole this version of the world.” He handed the rock to Buckethead and pulled out his portal gun to shoot an exit in the ground nearby, but before he could even demand that Summer come with them, Buckethead spoke up. “Wait! Can you show us more?”

Rick hesitated, and Amerie seized his shoulder. “Do it,” she hissed in his ear. He shot her a look over his shoulder, and she nodded furiously. He rolled his eyes and gave her a clear “this is all on you” look, then turned back to his granddaughter and Buckethead. “Yeah, whatever,” he said. A cheer went up from the Deathstalkers, and Rick led her and Morty back to their car to join the caravan back to whatever was home for these people. “Wh-wh-what are we doing?” Morty asked once they were moving, starting to panic a little. “I thought we had to go home!”

“Yeah, Amerie,” Rick sneered. “What are we doing?”

“The appeal of post-apocalyptic scenarios is that you’re too focused on survival to deal with all the angsty, emotional bullshit that Summer needs to be dealing with right now,” Amerie explained, leaning over the back of their seat to be heard over the wind whipping past them. “As soon as we make this place as brutally domestic as home, Summer has no reason to stay because she can no longer use it as a place to run from her problems.” She shrugged. “Even better if she starts playing house with Buckethead--”

“Hemorrhage,” Morty informed her. 

“Right, Hemorrhage, and it all goes south. New Summer is then dealing with the same shit as old Summer, but with way worse living conditions.”

Morty brightened up. “Hey, that could actually work,” he said.

“We’ll see,” Rick grumbled, screwing the top off his flask with one hand. 

“I give it less than a month before she’s asking to go home,” Amerie said. “And if she isn’t, we’ll just grab her, run, and make sure she never gets the portal coordinates.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: Elaborate revenge schemes! Jelly bean-inspired vigilantism! Smut!


	10. Imperator Amerieosa Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The updates have slowed down, but the chapters are getting longer, so I think that's a pretty fair trade-off?

It had taken Rick a few hours to get a functional power grid up and running, and most of that time had been spent arguing with Amerie about the best materials to use for the lines or something like that. Morty had anxiously hovered just out of the way watching them bicker, periodically jumping when Rick would suddenly demand he fetch a screwdriver or a hammer or another bottle of whatever passed for alcohol here. When Rick finally flipped the switch on the cannister that now housed the giant glowing rock, he looked inordinately pleased when he and Amerie huddled over the readout. She made a surprised noise in her throat. “You were right,” she said. “I never would have thought you’d get that kind of stability with a tungsten-bariate coil.”

“O-o-of course I was right,” Rick snapped, but he let the subject drop after just one comment rather than going on and on about being the smartest mammal in the universe. He couldn’t be sure, but Morty thought that maybe Rick liked having Amerie around to admire his work. At first, Morty had been so overwhelmingly awed by everything Rick made, but there was only so many times you could watch a guy build a robot to do something as dumb as pass the butter before the sense of wonder wore off. But Amerie actually knew what Rick was doing, and if gave Rick someone new to preen in front of. 

Morty was trying not to get his hopes up too much, but maybe with Amerie around to keep Rick busy, he could catch a fucking break every once and awhile.

A couple days later they had a house made of scrap metal and a television, and everything was about as boring as it was back home, especially with no Beth and Jerry to scream at each other on a regular basis. At first it was nice, but without school or video games or porn, Morty started getting restless. Just when he thought he’d go crazy watching another episode of  _ Post-apocalyptic Family _ , Amerie dropped onto the couch next to him with a clear sense of purpose in her eyes.

“Hey Morty,” she said, “what do you know about the slave trade around here?”

“Aw geez.” Morty’s hand rubbed the back of his neck. “I-I-I-I mean, other than the fact that it, like, exists? N-not a whole lot.”

“So how’d you find that one guy?”

Morty blanched at the memory, the way his throat had felt so thin in his giant hand. “Th-th-that was Armothy,” he explained. “I-I-I mean, I guess I beat it out of a guy?” 

Amerie hummed thoughtfully, leaning back and running her hands through her hair. It was getting kinda long, especially on top, but Morty didn’t really know how she usually wore it, if maybe she’d cut it extra short to take on the Federation and now was growing it back to normal. “Wh-why do you-- why’re you asking?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from the way Amerie’s posture jutted her breasts out with a sense of shame. He really missed his laptop. 

“Just a little project I have in mind for while we’re waiting on your sister to deal with her shit,” she said.

“What kind of project?” Rick had pretty quickly settled into his old habits of drinking and television and showed no signs of wanting to do anything more.

“Probably not gonna be a big surprise, but I don’t like slavers,” she replied, glancing over at him. “I’m thinking I’ll take as many of them out as I can while we’re here.”

Morty’s shoulders slumped. “It won’t matter,” he said pitifully. “There’s always someone that will take their place as soon as we leave.”

“That’s why we’re gonna Batman them,” she said with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Create a larger-than-life mythos. Get them scared that we could be watching them at any second, ready to swoop in with death and vengeance. Get the story to spread enough, someone else might even pick the project after we’re gone.”

Morty looked at her with his mouth slightly agape. “You-- you’re serious about this?”

She shrugged. “If we were back home, I’d work out my rage at the universe with violent video games. As it stands…” She looked over at him slyly, lips quirking up. “You want in?”

“Hell yeah!” he said, jumping to his feet in his excitement. “Wh-when do we start?” 

“As soon as we find ourselves a target.” She got up as well, stretching her arms high over her head. “But first, let’s take a little jaunt to the garage back home and raid Rick’s weapons cache. Superior firepower will only make us seem more god-like.”

It didn’t take much detective work to discover a group a few hours east that specialized in sex slaves. Amerie’s jaw was set particularly hard as Eli described the last time they’d come through displaying their wares, and Morty shuffled nervously at her side. “Are you-- are you okay?” he asked as she stalked back into their front door.

“Peachy,” she said through gritted teeth. “We’re gonna get some satisfaction.” She marched up to where Rick was passed out on the couch and kicked his feet. “Rick. Hey Rick!”

“Wazzat?” Rick looked around muzzily, his usual film of bile and saliva coating his chin.

“Got any spare portal fluid?” she asked, digging a portal gun out of her pack and waving it in his face. “I could use a top-off.”

“Geddyer fuggin’ own,” Rick slurred, already slumping to the side again.

“I’m about to take your grandson into a potentially dangerous situation,” she said, kicking his feet again. “Least you can do is make sure we can make a quick escape.”

But Rick was already snoring. Amerie sighed and handed the portal gun to Morty before starting through the various pockets in Rick’s coat. Morty watched with interest, especially when she pulled out some kind of creature in a jar and eyeballed it before putting it back with a look of disgust. Her face lit up when she pulled out a handful of small metal spheres, dropping them into her knapsack. “Those will come in handy,” she said, reaching more deeply into the pocket, “so long as we can find… Ah!” She came up with a pair of goggles that she looped around Morty’s neck. “Hang on to those. You’ll need ‘em later.”

“H-h-how does he keep so much stuff in there?” Morty asked, leaning in closer to try to see inside. 

“Somehow, the asshole has managed to create stable mini-portals,” Amerie said, pulling at the fabric until Morty could see the hint of a familiar green glow. “Inside, it feels like a big box or something.” She leaned back and gestured with her chin. “Go ahead, stick a hand in.”

Morty bit his lip before reaching tentatively into a pocket. It seemed like such a violation of Rick’s privacy to just go digging around, but Rick had never really shown any respect for  _ his  _ privacy… He shoved his hand in, feeling it go farther than it possibly could given the size of the pocket, then hit the bottom of… something. “Huh,” he said, running his fingers around cautiously, “it does feel like a box.” He felt cool, domed shape and pulled it out, pleased to see that he’d managed to find a spare portal fuel cell. “Is this what you needed?”

Amerie smiled at him. “Good job, kid,” she said, taking it from him and storing it in her pack with everything else, then grabbing the portal gun and shooting it at a nearby wall. “Let’s get going.”

They came out about a half-mile from another fortress. “I would really like to know why they keep building castles,” Amerie said, holding a pair of binoculars to her eyes, then passing them to Morty. He looked through, seeing a huge door surrounded by metal spikes, probably to prevent anyone from trying to drive a car through. Along the upper edges a few hulking figures paced back and forth. He suddenly felt exposed. “H-hey, should we be, ya know, w-wearing some camo or something?” 

Amerie paused thoughtfully, then shook her head. “Nah, we’re gonna hit ‘em before they even see us coming.” She unslung her pack and started pulling things out, starting with the metal spheres she’d been so excited about earlier. “These are darkness bombs. They suck all the light out of an area. I’ve only seen them used indoors, so I guess we’ll find out what their coverage is. Anyway, the goggles I gave you earlier, they let you see like everything’s normal.” She handed him a pair of laser pistols, and Morty thought for a moment how comfortable he was getting with a gun in his hand. “I’m gonna open a portal inside the courtyard,” Amerie went on. “At least I’m guessing it’s a courtyard. We’ll find out.”

“D-do you want to maybe, I dunno, do some recon first?” Morty asked, for the first time feeling a little concerned about this whole thing.

Amerie shook her head again. “Not necessary. I’ll open the portal, drop the darkness bomb, then we’ll stride into the chaos and start putting down the bad guys. Keeps us pretty safe and has the added bonus of sounding like a bona fide curse from angry gods when people talk about it later.”

“A-a-and the slaves?” 

“We’ll make sure they have means to escape and then we’ll leave them to it.” Amerie looked him up and down, and Morty fought to not fidget under her gaze. “You okay with this?” she asked. “If you’re not, it’s cool. You can wait here--”

“No,” he said, gripping his pistols tighter. “I want to do this.”

“And this plan is alright?”

Morty’s brows shot up. Rick never asked this many questions, just shoved him into it, assuming he’d either swim or die a horrible death drowning. “Y-yeah,” he stuttered. “It sounds pretty good to me.”

Amerie smiled with her teeth clenched tightly together. “Then let’s show these fuckers that there’s a price to pay.”

It went down exactly as Amerie predicted: she dropped the bombs, everyone panicked, and the two of them cleaned house. Morty did his best to ignore anything that wasn’t pointing his guns at slavers and pulling the triggers, but he couldn’t help catching sight of the cages that lined the courtyard and the naked people huddling inside, or the boy stretched out over a barrel, gasping and crying as the man who’d so recently been raping him started fumbling in the dark only to be mowed down by Amerie’s well-placed bolts in his head and chest. For a second, he felt a tickle of breath on his ear, sticky hands clawing at his shirt... heard a voice hissing, “Just let this happen…” 

Then he was back in the courtyard and there was screaming and crying coming from all sides, even after the gunfire stopped. Amerie leaned over to whisper in his ear and he did his best not to flinched away from the sensation. “I’m gonna clear the building,” she said. “See if you can get some of those cages open. And keep an eye on your back.”

Morty nodded his understanding, watching for a moment as Amerie kicked down a nearby door and rolled another darkness bomb inside. He then started to the nearest cage, shoving one pistol into the back of his pants while he kept the other handy, just in case. The locks were old and rusted, and for a second he thought about looking around for a key, then, with a shrug, just shot it off. More screams, but he didn’t try to say anything comforting. It wouldn’t help, he knew, and his stuttery, high-pitched voice wasn’t going to do anything for Amerie’s whole crazy Batman scheme. Instead, he carried on down the line, shooting locks off of cage doors until he thought enough people could get out to help the rest. He turned back to the door Amerie had disappeared inside, hearing a handful of muffled shots, then silence again. Jostling his leg restless, his eyes scanned around again, and relief washed through him when Amerie piled back out, a look of satisfaction on her face. He watched her flip her goggles up then back down, probably to check whether or not it was still dark. Morty did the same, panicked slightly at the complete lack of light -- so absolutely foreign to a kid from the suburbs -- then replaced his eyewear and watched Amerie pull a small tool out of her pocket and crouch on the ground. He recognized the kind of laser drilling thing that Rick used with such careless abandon when he’d been drinking, sending sparks filing everywhere with little regard to those around him. Amerie was more deft, carving out a row of neat letters in the courtyard stones: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TREAT PEOPLE AS THINGS. I AM WATCHING. She drew a little targeting symbol at the end, surveyed the work, then looked up at Morty with an eyebrow raised in question. He gave her a thumbs up and weak smile -- his stomach was starting to hurt and he couldn’t stop looking at the boy, the little line of red running down his thigh -- and she nodded in return before shooting another portal and chivvying him back home.

As soon as his feet were back on the familiar rough floor, Morty was running for the bathroom, dropping his guns as he went. He puked violently into the toilet bowl, gasping and heaving as wave after wave of spasms ripped through him. When he stopped, panting and dropping his head between his knees, a hand pushed a glass of water by his feet, then reached up to stroke his hair. “You’re alright,” Amerie soothed, pushing curls back from his sweaty forehead. “It’s alright.”

It took a couple of minutes before he felt ready to sip the water, but Amerie stayed by him the whole time, her hand a comforting weight against his back. Slumping against the wall, he said, “I-I-I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Amerie asked, but she didn’t sound skeptical.

Morty huffed a little laugh. “A-a-a-after some of the other fucked up-- mess up shit I’ve seen?” He got his legs underneath him, still a little shaky as he climbed to his feet. Amerie watched him inscrutably as he took a few breaths to steady himself before flushing the toilet. “You never have to do that again if you don’t want to,” she said. 

“O-o-okay.”

But the next time Amerie mentioned that she’d heard about a raiding party that was skirting along the edge of Deathstalker territory, Morty set his jaw in a firm line and went with her to murder the slaving scum in their sleep, because they needed to pay a price. They  _ all _ needed to pay a price.

 

*****

 

_ Bam. _

_ Bam. _

“Oh my god!”

_ Bam. _

“Hemorrhage!” 

Rick tipped his flask into his mouth, washing down the sour taste that hearing his granddaughter get pounded left in his mouth.

_ Bam. Bam. _

“Don’t stop! Harder! Fuck me harder!”

It wasn’t so much that he begrudged Summer her sexual satisfaction. He was all for her getting laid, so long as she didn’t get knocked up. He just didn’t especially want a play-by-play.

_ Bam. Bam. Bam. _

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna come!”

_ Bam bam bambambambam... _

At least, judging by the sound of things, it would be over soon and he could go back to getting shit-faced and watching Hamster-in-Butt  _ Games of Thrones _ . They’d gotten a hamster whose butt-person looked remarkably like Lena Headey to play Cersei.

_ Bambambambambam… _

_ Bam. Bam. _

_ Bam. _

Rick was honestly a little surprised they were fucking in the first place. Of course, at first they’d humped like Gorgolies in heat, but then, like always, the glow of the honeymoon faded and the bickering had started. Today’s action was make-up sex after a particularly vicious argument about how Hemorrhage never wanted to hang out with Summer’s friends or some shit like that. After living with Beth and Jerry’s bullshit for the last couple of years, Rick had gotten good at tuning out.

Hamster Jon Snow was leaning in to kiss hamster [redacted] when a green glow washed over the screen and Amerie and Morty strolled into the living room. Rick’s eyes narrowed as another sour taste washed across the back of his throat. Those two had been all chummy lately, going out on adventures and coming home with little shared smiles and Morty full of himself. Rick had bitched Amerie out when he’d discovered she’d gone through his pockets, but when Morty said he’d asked her to take him to free some other slaves, Rick hadn’t been able to tell the kid no.

It didn’t change the fact that a cocky Morty could lead to some real big problems. 

“...gonna go see if anyone else has heard about this!” Morty was saying. He dashed toward the door with only the briefest “Hey Rick!” on his way past the couch.

Amerie stayed where she was, watching the screen. “They really decided to go with the Jon/[redacted] ship in that dimension?” she said incredulously, then snorted. “They’re writing themselves into a corner.”

Rick didn’t answer, taking another long pull on his flask. Amerie sat down on the other end of the couch, dropping her ever-present knapsack on the floor beside her with a soft  _ thud _ and the sound of rattling metal. 

“You still carrying around that shit you stole from me?” Rick asked.

“Hm?” Amerie’s eyes were glued to the screen where a CGI dragon blasted a swath of fire across a plain filled with hamster-in-butts riding horses. “Oh, nah, I used those darkness bombs days ago. I broke apart the last couple to see how you made them so I could make more.” She kicked her boots off to get more comfy on the couch. “They don’t last as long as yours, but it’s better than nothing.”

Rick huffed. “Y-you coulda asked.”

“I did. You told me to fuck off.”

Rick racked his brain, trying to remember the exchange, but he couldn’t recall Amerie asking for anything. Then again, he thought, eyes cutting down to the flask in his hand, he had been hitting the sauce pretty hard, trying to dull the crushing sense of boredom while waiting for Summer to get all her shit together. “G-give me one of your bombs,” he muttered, “and I-I’ll see where you fucked up.” He stretched his arm to offer her some of the liquor.

She waved away the proffered flask, but still said, “Thanks.” 

He shrugged, took a drink himself, casually turning back to the television while still watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Y-you and Morty doing alright with your little secret club?” he asked. 

Amerie snorted a laugh. “Not my fault you’re always too drunk to move.”

“L-l-like I have any interest in whatever stupid shit it is you’re doing,” Rick snorted, sinking a little farther into the couch as if that could convey how tiny of a turd he gave about what they were up to.

Amerie smirked at him. “I used your crystalized xanthanite to download the reports my network’s been sending in regarding--”

“Project Circus,” Rick cut in before Amerie could give any details, glancing around quickly to see if either of his grandkids had suddenly appeared behind them.

Amerie’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs, which, Rick had to admit, looked a lot less dumb now that they were growing out. They made her forehead look less weird. “Seriously?” she said. “Project Circus?”

“I-I-I just don’t want anyone to get any wrong ideas,” he bit out, glaring at her. 

She studied him for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine, Project Circus. I’ve been doing some preliminary data coding based on what’s been sent in so far. I can’t tell much yet, but I can tell you that Morty needs to look like he’s doing well.”

“Sailor,” Rick interrupted again. “His codename is Sailor.”

Amerie actually laughed that time. “Is this whole thing a John Le Carre bit? Because that’s both incredibly nerdy and cool. Let me guess, you’re the Tinker?” 

Rick rolled his eyes. “Duh.”

“Then Beth must be Tailor, since she’s the only one in this family that actually stitches anything together, even if it is horse parts,” Amerie prattled on. “Summer’s Soldier… so then Jerry’s what? Poor man?” 

“Thief,” Rick growled.

Amerie laughed again, and Rick thought it was the first time he’d heard her laugh without it being tempered by a sense of dark humor. “I guess that makes me the Beggar Man!” she said, grinning widely. 

“Yeah, it does,” Rick answered pointedly, “so tell me what I want to know before I kick your ass to the curb.”

Amerie was still smiling as she went on. “Sailor needs to look like he’s doing well. He spends all his time trailing along after you, watching fucked up shit, believing he can’t do shit about it, so I’ve been trying to give him a sense of agency. That maybe sometimes he can do something.”

“Like freeing slaves even though they’ll probably just end up dead or back in a cage because they live in a world where the strong fuck over the weak,” Rick clarified. 

Amerie nodded. “Whatever let’s you sleep at night.”

“Y-you realize that the last time Morty decided he could  _ do  _ something by saving a telepathic fart from assassination, he almost brought about the destruction of all carbon-based life and caused the deaths of hundred in the process, right?”

Amerie’s lips twisted into a frown. “So maybe we’ll have to work on some long-term thinking skills…”

The kid in question picked that moment to burst in the door. “Vagular said he’d heard about the Crag Valley group getting wiped out,” he exclaimed as he rushed in front of the couch, “and Razor and Harold said they’d gone past Bael’s Junction a few days ago and the fort there had been a bloodbath, with the Dark Sniper’s mark.”

Amerie’s eyes got wide. “We haven’t set a foot in that direction.” She reached over to pound Morty on the arm. “We fucking did it!”

Rick belched loudly over the sound of Morty’s whoop of celebration. “Did what?” he asked, wondering why his stomach suddenly dropped like a stone.

“Set up a self-perpetuating vigilante mythos,” Amerie bragged, standing and stretching. “Alright, I need to wash up. I stink.”

“I-i-it’s the smell of a hard day’s work,” Morty replied with a smile, replacing her on the couch.

Rick kept his eyes on Amerie as she sauntered toward the closest thing to indoor plumbing these people would have, wondering why the hell she’d put so much effort into such a dumb idea. As soon as they left, this world was going to snap back into chaos and destruction.

“Y-y-you’re not jealous, are you, Rick?” Morty’s voice cut through his reverie. “C-cause what I’m doing with Amerie isn’t anything like-- like our adventures.”

Rick looked over to see his grandson twisting his fingers together in nervousness. “Of course not, ya little shit,” he said, smirking at the kid. “Amerie couldn’t put together a proper adventure if her life depended on it. Sh-sh-she takes everything too seriously.”

Morty frowned. “Yeah, I guess she is pretty, ya know, pretty serious about things. Hey, maybe when we get back home, we could, like, do something nice for her. L-l-like take her on a fun adventure or something? To help her relax a little?”

“What?” Rick snarked. “I-i-is she not enjoying our little vacation?”

Morty rolled his eyes. “I think she needs to have some fun, ya know? Just let loose a little…” He shrugged as he trailed off. “I-i-i-it was just an idea.” 

Rick snorted to let Morty know what he thought of his idea, then deliberately turned his attention back to the television. But the kid had a point -- the Amerie he’d seen on the dance floor in Madrid had yet to make another appearance. Her amusement at the codenames was the closest he’d seen -- the only thing he’d seen other than her lurking in her closet space on her phone (probably looking through the Circus reports, he now realized) or prepping for her excursions with Morty. It was like she was a shark that couldn’t stop swimming lest she drown, no matter how exhausted she was, no matter how pointless her attempts to save the entire fucking multiverse were.

Maybe it wasn’t that Amerie needed to take a break. Maybe it was that she needed someone to  _ make _ her take a break.

 

*****

 

“So, you and Rick G-xx1-- you were fuck buddies or something?” 

Amerie looked up sharply at the comment but Rick looked entirely nonplussed, with his legs stretched out on the coffee table and his hands behind his head, elbows spread wide and light from the TV glinting on a little drool on his chin. Her attempt at a darkness bomb was scattered in pieces on the coffee table before them and Amerie was working on the gradient regulation switch that Rick had identified as the problem piece in her design. “No,” she said, her face screwed up in confusion. “He hated me more than he hated most other things, so we avoided each other like the plague.”

Rick snorted. “He put up with Jerry but couldn't stand you?” His eyes never left the rerun of last week's Blood Dome quarter finals.

Amerie wriggled a set of needlenose pliers holding a tiny filter inside the switch, using the work to hide her discomfort. “Ameries are salt in some pretty deep wounds.” She shook her head suddenly, wondering why she was telling him this. “Why would you even ask in the first place?”

Rick shrugged. “Just try-- EURrRGH-- Just trying to figure out why you keep jumping my bones when you're drunk.”

Amerie blushed a bright, burning red. “Sorry about that,” she muttered. Why the  _ fuck  _ was he bringing that up now?

An awkward silence stretched between them as The Skull-Boiler broke Jagged Toenail’s arm in at least two places and Amerie fitted the switch back into bomb casing before carefully rethreading the wires through the device. She didn't know why Rick didn't change the channel; they already knew that Toenail made a miraculous comeback to qualify for the semi-final match. 

“Did you want to fuck him?” Rick asked.

“Aw hell no!” Amerie spat before she could think, dropping the bomb with a light  _ thunk _ in her surprise. It rolled over the far edge of the table and she took a breath, catching the hint of a smirk on Rick’s face out of the corner of her eye. “The hate was mutual. Zero sexual attraction.”

Rick made a show of humming thoughtfully. Amerie stood up, dead set on taking herself to her closet of a room before this could get any weirder, even if it meant leaving the darkness bomb incomplete, but as she started to turn, Rick’s hand shot out to grab her wrist and pull her back down on the couch.

Significantly closer to him.

Amerie felt her insides bottom out then flip back up in what was called “butterflies in one’s stomach” but what would more accurately be called “brain signaling vagina to begin lubrication and unfolding.” Rick’s grasp on her wrist was loose but unyielding, and the skin there prickled with the contact.  _ Shit,  _ Amerie thought,  _ what the fuck is his game here? _

“S-see first I thought,” he was saying, eyes still glued to the screen, “end-of-the-world fuck -- makes sense. Like you said, warm body is a warm body. But then, even before the drugs kicked in, you pretty clearly didn't want to go home with that asshole at the club, so that time it wasn't just general horniness.” His thumb stroked a gentle line along the veins on the inside of her arm, and she did her best to hide the shiver that ran through her. “So then I-I-I think, well maybe-- maybe she and G-xx1 had a thing and she's just missing her bae. Or maybe she always wanted to and is going for the next best thing. But you shot that theory down pretty-- pretty quick. So that means, it's me.” Now he turned to gaze down at her with hooded eyes, lips quirked up ever so slightly on one side. “You wanna fuck me.”

His gaze was full of challenge, daring her to protest, but her throat was dry and her panties were soaked, invalidating any claim to the contrary. Sure, there were all kinds of questions of  _ should _ she fuck him, but somehow, sitting on a poor excuse for a couch in a post-apocalyptic wasteland after spending the last week hunting down slavers with her pseudo-nephew, those questions didn't seem that important. So she licked her lips and gave a curt nod of her head.

Rick’s mischievous grin deepened a hair. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “So then-- then I have to wonder why you only come on to me when you're drunk. F-f-fear of rejection is usually the main reason, but you don't seem to actually care that much.” He paused to lean over a little closer, like he was studying her face, then shook his head. “Nah, you've got all the tell-tale signs of nothing left to lose.” He flopped his head back against the couch again, still holding her in place next to him, thumb brushing delicate circles over her pulse. “S-s-see, you're not the-- not the only one that thinks about what makes people tick. I think you're wound as tight as ever-- all stressed out trying to keep everything under control. I think you get wasted and come on to me because you want to  _ not  _ be in control.” His eyes cut over at her. “You want somebody else to take over for a little while.” 

His other arm snaked out grabbing her far thigh and pulling her over to straddle his lap before she realized what he was doing. They were eye-to-eye, but Amerie felt like he was towering over her, breath warm and tantalizingly whiskey-laden across her already burning skin. “I could give that to you,” he purred, running his fingers up her hips. “B-b-but you already knew that, didn't you? I could take you places you never even dreamed of, take you a hundred different ways that would leave you a panting, moaning mess. I could take  _ complete _ control.” Her heart was thudding in her throat, and an embarrassing little whine escape from behind her teeth. Rick chuckled huskily at the sound. “All you have to do is say you want me to.” 

His lips ghosted against hers, the invitation for a kiss, waiting for her answer.

_ Oh god,  _ she thought,  _ oh god oh god oh god… _

_ Fuck it… _

“I want you to take me,” she whispered against his mouth. His reaction was immediate, lips pressing against hers in a vicious kiss, his tongue skirting along the edges of her mouth before diving in for the plunder. She whimpered softly, finding her hips grinding against his lap as he nipped the flesh of her neck and shoulder. Large hands wrapped around her ass, pulling her in closer, as she wrapped her fingers in the lapels of his coat, holding on tight.

Time slowed as Rick licked and sucked his way along her exposed collarbone, but he stopped when she let out a particularly lurid moan. He pushed her to her feet. “Garage,” he ordered. “Now.”

Once the door was closed, he pulled her clothes off efficiently, stripping her as quickly as possible, then taking a step back to sweep his eyes up and down her body. Amerie planted her hands on the table behind her and leaned back slightly, letting her hips and tits jut forward for his perusal. His lips lifted slowly in a devilish grin. “Not bad, baby girl,” he purred, closing the distance between them and filling a hand with a breast as the other gently grazed her hip. He kissed her again, dragging teeth along her bottom lip as he squeezed a nipple lightly between his fingers. She gasped into his mouth at the sensation, and he leaned back to watch her as he did it again. “ _ Fuck _ ,” she panted as her head dropped back, the slight pain in the bud shooting straight between her legs. He tugged harder and she moaned louder. “Sensitive, huh,” he said against the skin of her neck.

“Y-yeah,” she breathed out, trying to curtail her disappointment when his hand left her breasts to wrap around her ass, lifting her up onto the table. She started to reach for him, to pull him into another kiss, but Rick caught her wrists and directed her hands back to the surface below her. “You keep your hands here,” he directed, leveling a hooded glare at her. “You move them, you’re in trouble. Understand?” 

She bit her bottom lip to cover how badly being given an order turned her on. “Yes, Rick,” she answered, still breathing heavy. 

He smirked at her. “Good girl,” he said, then pushed her thighs farther apart. “Now, let’s see what we’re working with here.” He knelt between her legs, planting his hands on either side of her cunt before oh-so-gently parting her folds with his thumbs. The air hit the slickness there, a cool burst against hot flesh, and Amerie watched Rick examine her with the attitude of an aficionado before his tongue brushed a long, flat stroke from perineum to clit, and her eyes squeezed shut in a wave of pleasure. She sighed sharply and tried to leverage herself closer to his face, and Rick hummed in satisfaction as he went to work circling her nub with the tip of her tongue. Beneath the sound of her quiet whines, she could hear her nails against the surface of table as her hands tried to grab at something, anything, to hold to when Rick slid one long finger inside her hole, then another. “You gonna come for me, baby?” he asked, peering up at her with her fluids smeared on his face and his fingers playing her inner walls like a bass, a steady walking rhythm that made her feel like she wanted to die because it felt so good.

“Yes Rick,” she gasped and was rewarded with a long kiss to her clit. “That’s right,” Rick said, lips brushing against her, “say my name. Tell me I’m gonna make you come.”

“Y-you’re gonna make me-- make me c-c-come, Rick,” Amerie stuttered out as Rick’s tongue went back to stroking against her bud. Seconds later, her breath caught in her chest as her whole body went taut, cunt clenching around his fingers. She peaked, saw white behind eyes closed tight, let out a ragged broken sound as she crashed back down into her body, hands still planted firmly on the table, elbows locked to hold her weight as his fingers continued to stroke her through the aftershocks. 

“Look at you,” he said, getting back to his feet, “such a good girl. Now stay right there.” Her legs trembled, heels trying to find purchase against the cabinet doors as Amerie did as Rick told her, while he unbuckled his belt and his pants, letting them fall loosely around his knees and revealing an impressively thick cock. She watched as he stroked still-slick fingers along the shaft, idly wondering if it was good genes, biomedical interventions, or regular use that had kept Rick’s member in such good condition. His balls weren’t even sagging enough for her to notice. In fact, she kind of wanted to suck on them…

Rick interrupted her contemplation of his junk by pushing into her space, free hand lifting her face to his. “You like what you see?” he asked, running his thumb lightly along her lower lip.

In reply, she sucked the digit in her mouth, tasting her own saltiness and sighing. “Fuck, baby girl,” he growled, rubbing the head of his cock against her dripping pussy, “y-y-you just need someone to get you started and you’re all in, huh?” 

“Yeah, I guess...” she said, suddenly shy as Rick continued to stroke her lip.

He chuckled throatily. “I”m not-- I’m not complaining.” He pressed into her, stretching her around his girth, hand trailing down to draw a line of her spittle down her chest before pinching one pert nipple. She groaned loudly, hips canting forward to drive him deeper. “Especially since you’ve been so obedient,” he added, grabbing her thighs and guiding her legs around his waist. “Lay back,” he ordered, “and grab the edge. Don’t let go.”

“Yes, Rick,” she said, feeling him slide further inside her as her body stretched out on the table. She wrapped her fingers over the edge above her, and once she was in place, Rick smirked and slammed the rest of his cock into her cunt.

It was a quick and dirty fuck compared to the time he’d spent teasing her with tongue and fingers. Rick’s hips slapped against her ass at a driving pace and her whole body arched in response as her brain deteriorated into sparks and dazzle and her mouth produced a stream of inane noises. He planted his palms against her tits as leverage and Amerie wanted so badly to grab his hands, his arms, his hair, his anything...but her fingers stayed put and she squeezed her legs around his waist instead. “That’s right, baby girl,” he panted, as though he was reading her mind. “You gonna be good and come for me again?” She keened as he tugged on both nipples. “Didn’t catch that, babe,” he taunted. 

“Yes Rick!” she screamed and just like that, her body seized in a wave of passion, a sharp delicious tension from the base of her skull all the way to her cunt, body bowing like it would break, everything crackle and fizzle and muscle and fried central processor and more  _ more more more… _

She lay in a daze as Rick continued to pound into her, relishing the little plucks of pleasure that continued to lance through her before he pulled out suddenly and coated her breasts in stripes of white, leaning heavily over her and gasping through his release. He was all gritted teeth followed by sudden slack jaw, neck flushed a bright red above the collar of his shirt. Amerie blinked slowly, brain still trying to complete its post-orgasm reboot, as Rick caught his breath. When he straightened and began pulling up his pants, Amerie started to sit up, assuming he’d wander off and leave her to get cleaned up. “Ah ah ah!” Rick chided. “I didn’t say you could move yet.”

So she stayed put, body spread on display, until he pulled out a device that looked like a pen and flicked it on. A laser grid spread across her torso, followed by a flash, and all sign of jizz was gone. He looked down at her, a satisfied set to his mouth, and stroked a hand down her chest gently, like he was making sure he'd gotten her all clean. “Alright,” he said. “Now you can get dressed.”

Rick returned to his place on the couch and the Blood Dome reruns, but Amerie immediately collapsed on her pallet in her tiny room, only too willing to fall into the deep sleep of the sexually sated and all too eager to avoid thinking about what had just happened.

The next day Summer decided she’d had enough.


End file.
